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Published May 03, 2025 | 8:00 AM ⚊ Updated May 03, 2025 | 8:00 AM
IAS officer Smita Sabharwal. (Twitter)
Synopsis: After Telangana IAS officer Smita Sabharwal shared an AI-generated image criticising the state government, it reacted with a series of bureaucratic transfers.
The Telangana bureaucracy has just got a spicy shake-up! The state government’s latest game of musical chairs has left some senior IAS officers choking on bitter bile that rose in their throats, while others are hopping aboard the gravy train, ready for an exciting joyride.
Central to the bureaucratic shake up tamasha is the young IAS officer Smita Sabharwal. After she tossed out a Ghibli-style meme about wildlife chaos in Kancha Gachibowli— like a digital David slinging deadly stones at Goliath — she’s been banished to the bureaucratic equivalent of Narnia: Member Secretary of the Telangana State Finance Commission.
What’s that, you may ask? You may visualise it as the sixth finger of the finance department — nobody knows what it does, and it’s probably just there to give sidelined party loyalists a cushy chair to warm. It’s the kind of “backwater” post that makes “sent to Siberia” sound like a promotion.
When the police summoned her over the meme, she took to X, wondering if they’d haul in the other 2,000 folks who shared it. Bold move, but it landed her in the “boonies” faster than you can say the “retweet”. Unfazed, she went full philosopher on 29 April, dropping a Bhagavad Gita bombshell: “Karmanye vadhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachana”— meaning, “You have to do your duty but you may not be entitled to the fruits of your labour.” She then waxed poetic about her four-month tourism policy grind.
Meanwhile, senior IAS officer Shashank Goel is packing his bags for Delhi, probably muttering under his breath. He’s been “promoted” to head Telangana Bhavan, Delhi — a fancy title that screams “out in the hinterlands.” To add insult to injury, he’s a year senior to K Ramakrishna Rao, whom the chief minister picked up as the Chief Secretary.
Rao, who’s been glued to the finance department since time immemorial, now gets to steer the state’s money ship. Shashank, on the other hand, might probably searching the internet for “Things to do in Delhi.” It is a long-haul flight for him from the Centre for Good Governance to Telangana Bhavan, Delhi.
However, the real twist in the plot comes here. KS Sreenivasa Raju, the retired IAS officer, lands on Easy Street. After serving as Joint Executive Officer at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, he took voluntary retirement in 2024, only to find his way back as Advisor to the Chief Minister on Infrastructure.
Now, he’s been crowned with the position of Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister. Moral of the story? If you want to keep landing plum posts, don’t meme your way into your boss’s bad books — or do not pick fights you cannot win. Let us wait and see who is next in this game of bureaucratic roulette.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
