Modi Chemistry with Shaktikanta Das Buzzes in Babudom

Shaktikanta Das Emerges Babu Czar in Modi Govt

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, April 22, 2025: Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Shaktikanta Das is the new czar of Indian bureaucracy. This is the verdict by a section of top officials who attended the Civil Services Day yesterday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the 17^th Civil Services Day at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday. He also gave away awards for excellence in civil services to officials on the ground.

Pramod Kumar Mishra, better known as PK Mishra, who is also a principal secretary to the Prime Minister was missing from the spotlight. PK Mishra was learnt to have been away, addressing an event at IIM, Sambalpur in Odisha.

Incidentally, both PK Mishra and Das hail from Odisha. PK Mishra was a Gujarat cadre IAS officer. Das was a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer.

Nripendra Mishra, the first principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Modi, had passed on the baton to PK Mishra after spirituality pulled him away to works for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

“We are struck with the body language of das with Modi. They showed the comfort levels in each other’s company which has not been seen with other so far,” said a top ranking official, who attended the function at the Vigyan Bhavan yesterday.

Another official who also spotted a beaming Das alongside Modi said that the “chemistry between the two has indeed been talk of the town after the function ended”. “The ease with which Das conducted his space with Modi can well be a cause for envy for even the most powerful minister in the government. There is something unique in relations of the two,” said another senior official, who attended the function.

Das, said the officials quoted above, is currently “the most powerful bureaucrat in the PMO”. “Das shares a special relation with Modi. He was a key person in the government when Modi carried his most audacious experiment with the economy by demonetisation. His loyalty to Modi has been firm all these years,” said an official, who has worked in the Ministry of Finance at a senior position.

Will PK Mishra follow in the footsteps of Nripendra Mishra and find a “relaxed rehabilitation”? This question is now a subject of speculation among the officials in the Central government.

In the second term of the Modi government, PK Mishra was the most powerful bureaucrat. That stature may have already been passed on to Das, concurred some of the officials quoted above.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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