West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced that Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay has retired and he will be appointed as Chief Advisor to The Chief Minister.
“I will not allow Alapan Bandyopadhyay to leave Nabanna. He is now the Chief Adviser to the Chief Minister,” CM Mamata Banerjee said.
He will remain chief advisor to the CM for the next three years, Banerjee added, while Hari Krishna Dwivedi will be the next Bengal chief secretary. With regard to a letter from Centre, which had asked the Chief Secretary to join North Block from Tuesday, Banerjee said that since Alapan Bandyopadhyay had retired from service on Monday, he would not be heading to Delhi.
She said that Bengal had just received this letter and the reason for calling the Bengal chief secretary to join the Centre had not been mentioned in the letter to her. “Centre cannot force an officer to join it without consent of the state government: Mamata in letter asking Bengal chief secretary to report to Delhi. I appeal to all state governments, Opposition leaders, IAS-IPS officers, NGOs to fight the battle together.” she added.
Referring to Centre’s decision to recall Bandyopadhyay to Delhi, Banerjee said PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were “behaving like autocrats such as Hitler and Stalin.”
