Mumbai: Mudassar Patel, Mumbai Congress Minority Vice chairman 
(Mahim Samaritan) Social Activist, Trustee of Kazi Masjid Trust Mahim
Congratulates Shri Ajoy Mehta on his recent appointment as Principal Adviser to CM Uddhav Thackeray 

Mumbai: Former Maharashtra
Chief Secretary, Ajoy Mehta, has emerged as most powerful IAS Officer in the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. The Chief Minister relys on him solely.
This was precisely the reason, why a special post as Principal Advisor to the CM was created similar to what former Cabinet Secretary P.K. Sinha is to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mehta retired from the position as the Chief Secretary on June 30. Prior to this, Mehta got two extensions, one under Thackeray’s BJP predecessor Devendra Fadnavis, and another one in March, as the state was battling with the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to Hello Mumbai News Team, Congress Leader Haji Mudassar Patel said, “Mehta has played the most important role in tackling the Covid crisis in Maharashtra. He also emerged as a new power centre.”

“The chief secretary appears to be taking all the decisions in the state as no one has been privileged to get access to the Chief Minister due to Covid scare,” he added!.

This is the reason many Senior Ministers in the MVA government are mired and have openly expressed their discontent.

Ajoy Mehta, however, throws light on the criticism. “I’m bound to work by the law,” he said in The Indian Express interview. “My loyalty is to the good of the state. It is foremost on my mind. To achieve this, many times we have to speak our mind fairly and frankly. In that process, there may be some people who do not like it. That’s something I can’t help.” 

Mehta, an IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre, is a civil engineer by qualification and also has a master’s degree in business administration and a degree in law. He is known as a workaholic and a tough taskmaster among officers he has worked with. He is also believed to have an excellent rapport with his politician bosses. Before becoming Thackeray’s administrative right-hand man, Mehta had been a part of several politicians’ trusted circle of civil servants, including former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

In 2015, Fadnavis appointed Mehta as Mumbai’s municipal commissioner at a time when he had just scrapped a controversial development plan for the city and a new one had to be readied in a short period. 

He also holds the record for the longest-serving Mumbai municipal commissioner with a term of a little over four years. However, his longest and most illustrious assignment is his stint in the energy sector from 2005 to 2015.

The state moved from a situation of power shortage to energy sufficiency during this period, with minimised load shedding.

“One of the most experienced officers, Mehta has had a distinguished career and done great work in every department he has been associated with, be it the electricity department or the Mumbai civic body. He gave Mumbai a new direction as municipal commissioner, and has shared good relations with all in all these years,” Congress Leader Mudassar Patel added.

News Edit by K.V.Raman