Majid Jahangir, Srinagar
Chief Secretary to Jammu and Kashmir government, Mohammad Iqbal Khanday, on Tuesday resigned over his reported differences with the ruling alliance.
Khanday was a most senior IAS officer of 1978 batch in the state government.
Sources close to the bureaucrat revealed that Khanday was submitting resignation papers for voluntary retirement.
Khanday was made the Chief Secretary on 18 February 2013 during National Conference-Congress government headed by the then chief minister, Omar Abdullah.
Speculations about Khanday’s differences with the political dispensation had come to light immediately after the chief minister Mufti Sayeed of PDP-BJP alliance took oath of office in March this year.
Khanday on 21 August did not attend the cabinet meeting prompting media to speculate all was not well with him and the ruling alliance.
Several reports emerged that he was extremely unhappy over the way the state government was carrying out transfers/postings of certain bureaucrats.
Khanday was scheduled to retire in November 2015.
Reacting to this Abdullah tweeted that Khanday’s resignation was indicative of the fact that “things in J&K aren’t going as smoothly as some people would like to have us believe.”