New Delhi, May 24: Plum postings of some key PMO officials signed by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were held up by cabinet secretary Kamal Pande on the ground that the new government should have the discretion to take a decision.

While Vajpayee signed the appointments of some senior bureaucrats on April 30, the files reached the cabinet secretariat 15 days later on May 14, the day after election results were announced and it was clear that the NDA government was not coming back to office.

Pande decided to keep all the postings on hold as it would have been unfair to force the wishes of the NDA government on the new regime.

Appointments involving the PMO that were not cleared by Pande’s office included that of Vajpayee’s personal secretary R.P. Singh, a 1983 batch IAS officer, as adviser to the World Bank. Ajay Bisari, an IFS officer attached to the PMO, was to take up an assignment with the UN.

P.K. Deb, a Rajasthan cadre officer, was to go to the World Bank as senior adviser. M.S. Rathore, an Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer of the 1992 batch, was scheduled to take up a post with the International Monetary Fund. But this has also been put on hold.

Shakti Singh Rathore, officer on special duty attached to former finance minister Jaswant Singh, was slated to join the World Bank as executive assistant to the director. Shakti Singh is also from Rajasthan, the former minister’s home state.

The other officials were close to senior BJP leaders like Vajpayee and Singh.

PMO sources said these appointments had been stalled mainly because of the delay in file movement and blamed red tape that resulted in these recommendations reaching the cabinet secretary nearly a fortnight after Vajpayee signed the files.

However, several sources in the government also point out that these “blue-eyed boys” of the former PMO chose to push through these plum postings when they realised that the NDA government may not return to power. Initially these officials were in no hurry as they were confident of the Vajpayee-led coalition coming back to power. However, by the second phase of election on April 26, the picture was no longer rosy. Sources said it was at this time that officials closely allied to the government began pushing their files for the plum overseas postings. All these officials are now cooling their heels in a PMO where they are no longer at home.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured PMO officials that there would be no witchhunt of the bureaucracy, and none of them should have any apprehensions about being singled-out for being Vajpayee loyalists. Singh drove to South Block around 8:30 this evening and met senior members of Vajpayee’s team.

Nearly all of them are Vajpayee loyalists, a few hand-picked by the former Prime Minister himself, while others were vetted by Brajesh Mishra, the principle secretary to the former Prime Minister.