Manish Bhardwaj's new posting as Director Census Operations, Gujarat.

Manish Bhardwaj, an IAS officer of 1997 batch, has been appointed Director of Census Operations, Gujarat. This is a posting he supposedly was not looking forward to.
He along with his wife Sonal Mishra, (also an IAS officer who at present is Director, Municipalities); our sachivalaya sources say, lobbied hard to ensure that the posting does not take place. If the grapevine is to be believed, they even tried to impress upon Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr Bhardwaj was director technical education and if not any better posting, he was more than happy at this post. His first posting as Director Census operations came in a couple of weeks ago but he reportedly got it nullified using his sources in Delhi. Later a three member panel was formed and one of the three had to take up the Director, Census operations post. The panel names included that of Mukesh Kumar and Mr P.N.Patel besides Manish Bhardwaj. Since Mukesh Kumar is slated for education abroad, the choice was between Manish Bhardwaj and P N Patel.
Mr D K Sikri, registrar general and Census Commissioner of India who is also a Gujarat Cadre officer (1975 batch) is learnt to have insisted that he was keen to have a direct recruit as Director, Census operations Gujarat. Mr P N Patel who is right now additional secretary, tribal development is not a direct recruit.So, Mr Bhardwaj is all set to be the Director, Census Operations, Gujarat, much against his wish.