Shimla: In a sudden change, the Himachal Pradesh government on Thursday appointed Ram Subhag Singh, 1987-batch IAS officer, as chief secretary replacing Anil Kumar Khachi, who was made the state election commissioner.
Singh, a senior most additional Chief Secretary was handling the departments of Industries, Transport, Labour and employment.
It is believed he had been lobbying for the top post for quite some time as he has close links with the top BJP leadership.
The change, however, took the entire bureaucracy by surprise as the state assembly session was already underway and normally the administrative changes were not done during this period. This prompted the opposition Congress to stage a walkout in the Assembly in protest and even raised the questions on the timing.
A notification issued later made the picture clear when Khachi was appointed as the state election commissioner (SEC)–a post already vacant.Khachi took retirement, much earlier before date of actual retirement to take up the new change. Khachi, a 1986-batch IAS officer, served as the chief secretary for over one year and seven months.