Former Bureaucrats Refute Ravi Shankar Prasad’s Charge of Political Bias

New Delhi: In an attempt to "set the record straight", around 45 former civil servants have penned a letter to Stephen Sackur, the host of BBC's HARDtalk, to refute a statement made during an interview in July by law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Prasad, upon being asked by Sackur about an open letter that had been sent by the group to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2018 on the Unnao and Kathua rape cases, attacked the credibility of the group of 'concerned citizens' and claimed that most of the members of the group had made "a public appeal to vote against" BJP in 2014.

Calling the allegation false, the group of retired civil servants reiterate that the group only came together in June 2017, which is why the question of their "having made an appeal to influence the 2014 parliamentary elections is absurd".

The full text of the letter is published below:

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Dear Mr Sackur,

In your interview with Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, India's Minister for Law and Justice in the 'Hard talk' show telecast on July 17, 2018, you had asked him to respond to the issues raised in the open letter  our group of retired civil servants had written to the Prime Minister in April this year. Mr Prasad dismissively responded to your query by questioning our credibility on the ground that 90% of the members of this group were those who, in 2014, had made a public appeal to vote against Shri Narendra Modi.

This is completely false. We came together as a group only in June 2017 to voice our concern against the decline in secular, democratic and liberal values enshrined in the Constitution and the climate of hate and fear which we believed, and still do, had been induced by the ruling establishment. We did not exist as a group until then, so the question of our having made an appeal to influence the 2014 Parliamentary Elections is absurd. We are proud of the fact that as a group we have no political affiliation with any political party whatsoever and as former civil servants who  owe our allegiance to the Constitution of India we take the issue of our political neutrality very seriously. For the Minister to use a lie to raise doubts on our credibility and deflect attention from the issues we raised is contemptible.

We are writing to you to set the record straight and we hope the BBC will give appropriate attention and publicity to our clarification and whenever possible, also give us an opportunity to present our point of view on the issues raised by us in our several open letters.

Anita Agnihotri, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, GoI

Salahuddin Ahmad, IAS (Retd.), Former Chief Secretary, Rajasthan

V.S. Ailawadi, IAS (Retd.), Former Chairman, Electricity Regulatory Commission

Gopalan Balagopal, IAS (Retd.), Former Special Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal

Chandrashekhar Balakrishnan, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Coal, GoI

Pradip Bhattacharya, IAS (Retd.), Former Additional Chief Secretary, Development & Planning and Administrative Training Institute, Govt. of West Bengal

Meeran C. Borwankar, IPS (Retd.), Former DGP, Bureau of Police Research and Development, GoI

Sundar Burra, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra

Som Chaturvedi, IRTS (Retd.), Former Additional Member, Railway Board, GoI

Surjit K. Das, IAS (Retd.), Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Uttarakhand

Vibha Puri Das, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI

Nareshwar Dayal, IFS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom

Keshav Desiraju, IAS (Retd.), Former Health Secretary, GoI

M.G. Devasahayam, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Govt. of Haryana

Sushil Dubey, IFS (Retd.), Former Ambassador to Sweden

K.P. Fabian, IFS (Retd.), Former Ambassador to Italy

Ravi Vira Gupta, IAS (Retd.), Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India

Vivek Harinarain, IAS (Retd.), Govt. of Tamil Nadu

Sajjad Hassan, IAS (Retd.), Former Commissioner (Planning), Govt. of Manipur

Dr. M.A. Ibrahimi, IAS (Retd.), Former Chief Secretary (rank), Govt. of Bihar

Ajai Kumar, Indian Forest Service (Retd.), Former Director, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI

Arun Kumar, IAS (Retd.), Former Chairman, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, GoI

Brijesh Kumar, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GoI

Harsh Mander, IAS (Retd.), Govt. of Madhya Pradesh

Aditi Mehta, IAS (Retd.), Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan

Sonalini Mirchandani, IFS (Resigned), GoI

Sunil Mitra, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI

Deb Mukharji, IFS (Retd.), Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh and Ambassador to Nepal

Pranab S. Mukhopadhyay, IAS (Retd.), Former Director, Institute of Port Management, GoI

Nagalswamy, IA&AS (Retd.), Former Principal Accountant General, Tamil Nadu & Kerala

Amitabha Pande, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI

Niranjan Pant, IA&AS (Retd.), Former Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General of India

N.K. Raghupathy, IAS (Retd.), Former Chairman, Staff Selection Commission, GoI

Julio Ribeiro, IPS (Retd.), Former Adviser to Governor of Punjab & Ambassador to Romania

Manabendra N. Roy, IAS (Retd.), Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal

Umrao Salodia, IAS (Retd.), Former Chairman, Rajasthan Road Transport Corporation, Govt. of Rajasthan

Deepak Sanan, IAS (Retd.), Former Principal Adviser (AR) to Chief Minister, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh

Ardhendu Sen, IAS (Retd.), Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal

Abhijit Sengupta, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI

Aftab Seth, IFS (Retd.), Former Ambassador to Japan

Raju Sharma, IAS (Retd.), Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh

Jawahar Sircar, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI, & CEO, Prasar Bharati

Ramani Venkatesan, IAS (Retd.), Former Director General, YASHADA, Govt. Of Maharashtra

K. Sujatha Rao, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary, Minstry of Health and Family Welfare, GoI

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