As leaders of 26 parties opposed to the BJP arrived in Bengaluru to take part in the meeting to formalise strategies to counter the saffron party in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, deploying IAS officers from the State as their liaison officers came for criticism. As many as 30 IAS officers were named as liaison officers to receive the leaders at the airport. However, sources in CMO said it was not out of place because they were “state guests.”
Terming it a “gross misuse of power”, former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, for whose swearing-in political leaders had come to Bengaluru in 2018, said he had not deputed any IAS officer then and only some rooms had been allocated as part of the protocol. “Today, IAS officers have been used as Congress workers to further Ghatbandhan. This a private event.”
Government sources said detailing IAS officers as liaison officers for a political event was not proper though such things are part of protocol when they come to attend an official functions.
Multiple senior officers acknowledged that deploying liaison officers to receive and send off state guests is normal and part of the protocol, but to have them for a political event is unprecedented. An official in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms said that the deployment was based on instructions from the chief minister’s office.
However, one of the officers, who has been named as liaison officer, said that such moves had been made several times in the past. “It is definitely not an unprecedented move,” the officer said.
