Mukherjee had sought transfer of the 38-year old Saumitra Mohan, a 2002 batch IAS officer posted in Birbhum district as the collector, to the Centre to fill the vacancy caused by promotion of his present private secretary Manoj Pant, also a West Bengal cadre IAS officer of 1991 batch.
Since his
son Abhijit was elected to the assembly from Birbhum, Banerjee suspected that the FM wants to reward the collector with a central posting for helping Abhijit in the elections and hence she issued orders transferring Mohan to Darjeeling.
Pant, who has already completed his central tenure and who cannot continue as the minister's private secretary after his promotion, is being sent to the World Bank as the deputy secretary to executive director M N Prasad. Pant takes over the post in December from Pulok Chatterjee returning to Delhi to head the prime minister's office as principal secretary to Dr Manmohan Singh.
