Mumbai/Delhi: With K Kailashnathan, the chief principal secretary to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most trusted lieutenants in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) retiring last Sunday, all eyes are on who will fill the role.
The scale is tilted in favour of Hasmukh Adhia, a retired 1981-batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer and former Union finance secretary who is the principal adviser to CM Patel.
After Kailashnathan, Adhia is considered the most powerful official in the state, IAS officers as well as politicians from Gujarat say. And like Kailashnathan, he, too, has Modi’s ear and was his principal secretary when he was Gujarat chief minister.
This has given rise to speculation that Adhia will take over Kailashnathan’s place, if not in letter, at least in spirit. Sources say while Adhia may or may not be formally appointed to Kailashnathan’s designation, he is most likely to inherit the legacy of the former chief principal secretary’s clout.
Amit Dholakia, a faculty member at the political science department of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, told ThePrint that Adhia has long been considered Kailashnathan’s successor. “Kailashnathan’s role in the Chief Minister’s Office was reduced relatively ever since Hasmukh Adhia was appointed in the CMO. Kailashnathan’s focus was mostly on the Sabarmati Ashram renovation project. Adhia looked after other government affairs,” he said.
However, the Gujarat government through a notification Monday said that Kailashnathan would continue as chairman of the Sardar Sarovar Nigam Ltd.
Adhia declined to comment to ThePrint, saying he did not interact with the media.
The retired civil servant was brought back to the CMO and appointed Patel’s principal advisor in December 2022 along with S.S. Rathore, an officer from the Gujarat Engineering Service, who retired as additional chief secretary in 2014.
Officers, politicians and industry stakeholders described Adhia as a reserved, gentle person. They said that while Adhia is the non-executive chairman of GIFT City and Chancellor of the Central University of Gujarat, he prefers to stay out of the public and media glare.
Retired former chief secretary P.K. Laheri, who knows Adhia and his family well, told ThePrint, “Hasmukh Adhia is a reserved person, while Rathore is accessible. He focuses on finance, economy. His advice is considered very relevant in the government. He has been given many responsibilities, but his basic interest remains yoga.”
Succession in the works for long
A senior Gujarat-cadre IAS officer, heading a key social sector department in the state, told ThePrint that Kailashnathan had withdrawn himself and taken a backseat in the past one-and-a-half years.
“He was involved in bare essentials like overseeing the Gandhi Ashram redevelopment project. He was preparing for a gradual transfer of power. In such a situation, everybody accepted Adhia as the new super boss,” the officer, who did not want to be named, said.
The officer added that it did not matter if Adhia was formally appointed as chief principal secretary to the chief minister. The chief principal secretary’s post was specially created for Kailashnathan after he retired in 2006 as principal secretary.
“But even if the post is not revived for Adhia, it doesn’t matter. For all practical purposes, Adhia is the most powerful bureaucrat in the state. Also, he is the senior-most,” the officer said.
That he is close to Modi does not leave any scope for ambiguities about his power in the scheme of things, sources said.
On paper, Adhia is handling sectors including finance, education, and energy among others. “But he is aware about what is going on in different ministries and departments. As somebody who headed the taskforce that prepared the roadmap to make Gujarat a trillion-dollar economy, he has interacted with every department in the state and knows their issues,” said a second Gujarat-cadre IAS officer posted in the state.
Kailashnathan was Modi’s representative in the CMO and has worked with every CM of Gujarat after Modi — Anandiben Patel, Vijay Rupani, and now Bhupendra Patel.
A senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA, who did not wish to be named, however, said that while Adhia was the clear second-in-command because of his seniority and proximity to Modi, “nobody in the CMO can have the kind of clout that Kailashnathan had”. He added: “If the post of the chief principal secretary is kept vacant, it will also be indicative of the PM putting greater trust in Bhupendrabhai Patel in running the Gujarat government.”
Other senior officers in the Gujarat CMO include Rathore, who has previously headed the Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation Limited. Rathore now handles issues related to multiple sectors such as roads and buildings, civil aviation, metro rail project, railways and Sardar Sarovar, among others.
There are also Pankaj Joshi, a 1989-batch IAS officer, who is the additional chief secretary to Patel and Avantika Singh, who is the secretary.
BJP sources said Rathore’s role is more that of a technical advisor to the government, while Adhia was a clear intermediary between Modi and Patel. “Any industrialist knows that if he wants to get something done, he has to go to Adhia. If Adhia is convinced, the CM only needs to be informed,” a BJP functionary told ThePrint.
Singh, a 2003 batch IAS officer, on the other hand, plays a typical bureaucratic role within the CMO. “She is not so powerful that she can make suggestions to the CM,” the above-mentioned functionary added.
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Among Modi’s men
Adhia, a gold medallist from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, served in multiple roles in the Gujarat government related to industries, industrial investment and the state finances before becoming principal secretary to Modi, who was then Gujarat CM, from May 2004 to June 2006.
A retired Gujarat IAS officer described Adhia’s tenure in the CMO as “rather short”. He left for a two-year stint to complete his PhD from the Swami Vivekananda Yoga University in Bangalore.
Later, he became the principal secretary in-charge of Gujarat’s education department and then additional chief secretary, finance, before moving to the Centre in 2014, soon after Modi became prime minister. He was made secretary of financial services, where he helmed the government’s pet micro-financing scheme, the Mudra Yojana.
In the Union finance ministry, Adhia is also known to have overseen the implementation of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax regime.
Adhia was tipped to be the next cabinet secretary after P.K. Sinha, but the Centre decided to extend Sinha’s tenure in May 2018. Adhia then went on a fortnight’s leave — time he spent at a meditation and yoga centre in Mysore — triggering chatter that he was unhappy with the decision.
He subsequently retired from service as Union finance and revenue secretary in November 2018, and decided to move back to Gujarat rather than hang around in Delhi, awaiting a post-retirement assignment.
In a blog post about Adhia, then Union finance minister Arun Jaitley wrote, “Dr. Adhia’s tenure saw an exponential increase in tax base and the tax realisations… The government wanted to use his capability and experience in some alternate capacity. He had informed me earlier this year that he would not work for a single day after the 30th of November 2018. His time thereafter belongs to his favourite passion and of course his son.”
However, once back in Gujarat, Adhia did not completely stay out of public life. In March 2019, he was appointed chancellor of the Central University of Gujarat and non-executive chairman of the Bank of Baroda. In 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, then Gujarat CM Rupani sought out Adhia’s expertise to head an economic revival committee for the state.
“Hasmukh Adhia has a strong financial mind and can think from the perspective of investors, something that the Gujarat government lacked before he got involved actively,” said Ajit Shah, president of the Sanand Industries Association.
He added that if there was any major hurdle in any project, all that industrialists needed to do was bring it to Adhia’s attention. “Any problem then gets sorted,” he said.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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