With Hari Shankar Brahma joining as election commissioner last month, many wondered whether the road from the ministry of power leads to Nirvachan Sadan, the office housing the powerful managers of elections in the country. When Anil Razdan retired as power secretary in 2008, his name too did the rounds as a possible election commissioner. However, it was only his successor in the ministry, VS Sampath, who ultimately got the job.
Brahma, like Sampath, is a 1975 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service belonging to the Andhra Pradesh cadre. Born in Gosaigaon in Kokrajhar district of Assam, Brahma’s striking feature is his simplicity, so typical of those who hail from the northeast. From a frank admission to not having sold anything before at the power PSU’s public issue conference to making a ‘common man’s’ observation that his mornings are ruined if his wife is upset about power cuts at home, Brahma has been embarrassed more than once by making uninformed comments to the media on power policy issues.
The world of civil servants perfects officers in the art of pretension. But the once straight-shooting Brahma, an alumnus of St Edmund’s College, Shillong, and Don Bosco School, Guwahati, has probably learnt his lessons and has not been heard speaking off-the-cuff to the media since he took on his new job. The price of power, as we all know, is always high.