A low-profile JP Gupta-Sudhansh Pant team will effectively implement PM & CM’s ‘mandate’ in Rajasthan!

Ahmedabad: Gujarat’s Additional Chief Secretary (Finance), Jagdish Prasad Gupta, is likely to go on inter-state deputation to his home state of Rajasthan to helm the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) as ACS. According to sources, the BJP top brass has decided to send Gupta to Rajasthan to steer the CMO, as CM Bhajan Lal Sharma is new to the administration.

“Gupta is a trusted aide and has vast experience in the administration,” a source said. He is a 1991 batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre and has always served in the state cadre. He is scheduled to retire in July 2025. Known as a polite and mildmannered bureaucrat, Gupta is regarded as a very efficient administrator who keeps a low profile but delivers the desired results. Also, he is very skilled in dealing with politicians and political figures and does not hold a confrontational attitude. Though JP Gupta and Sudhansh Pant are batchmates, Gupta is senior to Pant. Incidentally, Sudhansh Pant is also a low-profile, efficient, and silent worker. In this way, both are like-minded people who will effectively implement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s and Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma’s mandate in Rajasthan. According to sources, Rajasthan CMO is now working on a Gujarat CMO model where Narendra Modi’s trusted 1979 IAS cadre officer Kuniyil Kailashnathan is virtually running the show of CMO as Chief Principal Secretary to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel, a post specifically created for him after his retirement in 2013. Kailashnathan, popularly known as KK in Gujarat has been serving the Gujarat CMO since Narendra Modi’s chief ministerial days and is considered as an ‘operational and coordination link’ between the CMO and the PMO. JP Gupta is from the Dausa district of Rajasthan and studied mechanical engineering before he took up civil services. In Gujarat, he has always held prime postings from the beginning. He has been DDO, Kutch, which is the largest district of the state and also Rajkot Municipal Commissioner. At the state level, he was commissioner of Value Added Tax (VAT), when the state sales taxes were transitioned to the VAT regime. Again, he was the special commissioner of the state GST. He had a long tenure as commissioner of Transport where he had introduced many reforms like computerisation of all check posts across the state. He also served as the commissioner of health. Along with being ACS (Finance), Gupta is also holding the additional charge of MD, Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL), which has built the Narmada Dam and operates the state’s largest project.