Ranchi, Oct. 12: A state with five chief secretaries in a fiscal that is seven months old can perhaps rival a state which in the past five years has seen three chief ministers and two stints of President’s Rule, quip political wags after the surprise appointment of Sajal Chakraborty, again, in the secretariat’s top seat.

Chakraborty, who took charge on October 1, also counts himself among his many recent predecessors.

Senior IAS officer and former director general of UIDAI R.S. Sharma held the chief secretary’s chair till April 30, after which Chakraborty took over with an officiating/acting tag. In mid-August, Chakraborty was unceremoniously removed to make way for his immediate junior Sudhir Prasad.

In September last week, when Prasad went abroad on leave, senior IAS R.S. Poddar became acting chief secretary. On September 30, the state again appointed Chakraborty for the job, this time minus the acting tag.

As the appointment of chief secretary, the secretariat’s kingpin, is seen as the chief minister’s prerogative, the musical chairs scenario in poll-bound Jharkhand sparked everything from sharp criticism to snide comments and sniggers for Hemant Soren.

“This is no governance model. Even during the so-called bad times of Lalu Prasad in Bihar and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, nothing like this happened. Regular shunting of chief secretaries does not send a good message either to legislators or to bureaucracy. Work suffers,” a senior IAS said.

Hushed whispers in bureaucratic circles suggest that Prasad, once in the JMM’s good books, had fallen foul for reasons unknown.

Also, when acting chief secretary Poddar couldn’t attend a crucial cabinet meeting on September 30 on iron ore mines lease renewal for SAIL and Tata Steel because he was at a Swachh Bharat Abhiyan meeting at Raj Bhavan in his capacity as principal secretary to governor Syed Ahmed, the government realised they needed a whole-timer.

Chakraborty, known for his flamboyant, individualistic style of working, and his outspokenness — he fought a verbal duel with two JMM MLAs during his tenure as acting chief secretary and criticised the government for saddling him with an ‘acting’ tag — couldn’t have been the unanimous choice.

Asked, JMM’s general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya defended Hemant’s decisions. “Sajal Chakraborty was removed from the post of acting CS in August because he had health problems,” he said. “The government acts according to the need of the hour. Nothing should be read between the lines.”

Hemant’s predecessor Arjun Munda of the BJP, also the state’s three-time chief minister, during his latest tenure between September 2010 and January 2013, had only two chief secretaries — A.K. Singh (from April 2010 to March 2012) and S.K. Choudhary (from March 2012 to March 2013).

Asked to comment on Hemant’s chief secretaries, Munda was scathing.

“This is a confused government with literally no governance model. It seems self-interest is overpowering the interests of the state and its people. I don’t know the internal reasons behind this, but this is a disturbing trend.”

Bureaucrats maintain that the Hemant Soren government has started another bad precedence of giving additional charge to chief secretaries.

Chakraborty will continue to hold additional charge of civil aviation department and on the board of revenue as a member as well.

His predecessor Prasad, now shunted to Sri Krishna Institute of Public Administration (Skipa) as director general, would also continue to hold additional charge of additional chief secretary of state’s drinking water and sanitation department.

“Normally, a chief secretary is never given additional charge. But for reasons best known to this government, it is happening here,” a senior IAS officer said, adding that “many upright officials” had also been shunted to less important government departments.