New Delhi: Kuniyil Kailashnathan, the chief principal secretary to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and one of the state’s most powerful civil servants, known to have had Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ears, hung his boots Sunday after helming the chief minister’s office (CMO) for 18 years.
K.K. — as Kailashnathan is popularly known — has been driving the Gujarat CMO, where he first got posted in 2006 when Modi was chief minister.
One of Modi’s most trusted lieutenants to date, Kailashnathan’s value in the scheme of things in the Gujarat government can be gauged from his retention in the CMO as chief principal secretary — a post created specially for him — to then CM Modi in 2013 despite his retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He continued in that post for 11 years after getting multiple extensions.
There were rumours that Kailashnathan would be brought to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) after Modi took charge as PM in 2014. But, the low-key civil servant eventually stayed back in Gujarat, continuing to be Modi’s eyes and ears in the state.
Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel Saturday wrote a post on X, acknowledging Kailashnathan’s contributions, throwing light on the role the 1979-batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer played in running the show in the state.
“As the principal secretary of the then chief minister and present Prime Minister Shri Narendrabhai Modi, Shri K. Kailashnathan has served in the CMO since 2006. His expertise in formulating industrial and port policy in the state and in areas such as drinking water and earthquake rehabilitation in Ahmedabad has been outstanding. Even after he retired from civil services in 2013, Kailashnathan continued to serve as principal secretary in the CMO,” Patel wrote in his post.
ThePrint takes a look at the scope of Kailashnathan’s power in Gujarat.
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Constant in CMO
As ThePrint reported earlier, a badly kept secret in Gujarat that is also a proverb in the state’s power corridors is — “The Gujarat government can’t run without K.K. and the BJP’s organisation can’t run without kaka” — in which kaka refers to Surendrabhai Patel, the BJP treasurer who is seen as the party’s moneybag.
The notion that K.K. is Modi’s eyes and ears in Gujarat only got strengthened in 2021, when the state government put out a notification that with effect from 13 September, the retired IAS officer would continue as the chief principal secretary to the then newly-appointed Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.
It was the seventh extension for Kailashnathan since 2013, when he retired from service as the additional chief secretary to the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
It also marked 15 years of his tenure within the Gujarat CMO. Since 2006, when he was first posted at the CMO, Kailashnathan has served four chief ministers — Modi, Anandiben Patel, Vijay Rupani, and Bhupendra Patel.
Sources say that Modi trusted the officer so much that in 2014, when he became PM, he moved all his trusted civil servants — A.K. Sharma, Hasmukh Adhia, G.C. Murmu, Sanjay Bhavsar and P.K. Mishra — to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) but left Kailashnathan back in Gujarat.
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Gujarat’s most powerful man
Kailashnathan has served as collector of Surat and Surendranagar, and was the municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad from 1991 to 2001.
A number of sources also told ThePrint that as CEO of the Gujarat Maritime Board, he had overseen the privatisation of ports, bringing him in touch with Gautam Adani, who then recommended him to Modi.
A Malayali by birth but groomed in Tamil Nadu as his father was posted with the postal department in Ooty, Kailashnathan graduated from Madras University and has a postgraduate degree from the University of Wales.
Sources said that it was during his tenure as principal secretary of the urban development department that Ahmedabad’s rapid bus transit project was developed.
They also said that two projects played a crucial role in establishing the IAS officer as an able civil servant in the eyes of Modi.
One was the water pipeline grid around the Narmada Basin, which now caters to 75 per cent of the state’s population, and the other is the state government’s flagship Sauni Yojana, which takes the Narmada’s waters to water-deficient Saurashtra.
“Before 2000, Saurashtra and Kutch regions were water deficient; droughts were a normal feature but Modi’s vision and Kailashnathan’s implementation has changed the dynamics of this region,” a former civil servant who served with K.K. told ThePrint. “The pipeline they laid covers 361 km and now there is no such scarcity of water in the area.”
The retired civil servant also oversaw another of Modi’s pet works, the Sabarmati Ashram Development Project, in which he headed the executive council. The Rs 1,246 crore project, spread across 55 acres of land, is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi and was announced by the prime minister in 2019.
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Modi’s strategist
Apart from his administrative work, Kailashnathan is also seen as Modi’s political strategist in Gujarat, who regularly engages with officials in the PMO on issues concerning the state.
“His acumen is astounding; his experience, and political perspective is more astute than many of the politicians,” said a second civil servant who had worked with K.K.
“Not only does he handle administration, the bureaucracy and policy decisions of the government, he also handles political operations, whether it’s the Patidar movement or to provide arrangements for campaigning.”
The retired civil servant also said that Kailashnathan helped with image building, when Modi moved to Delhi.
For instance, he facilitated the meeting between Modi and retired Supreme Court judge, Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, who headed the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal that probed the Gujarat riots of 2002. Following the meeting in 2013, Iyer endorsed Modi’s bid for Prime Ministership.
“In the creation of the Modi image, his contribution can’t be ignored,” the retired officer said. “He understands politics and the PM takes his suggestions very seriously. But he speaks very little and to the point, without any introduction.”
Such is his importance in Gujarat that after Bhupendra Patel, a first-time MLA, was sworn in as chief minister, a senior BJP leader and seven-time Lok Sabha MP remarked, “It does not matter who becomes the chief minister of Gujarat; ultimately, KK is here, he will rule the administration.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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