The Rise And Rise of Former IAS Officer Manish Verma In Patna's Corridors Of Power

Recently, a redux of the Odisha case involving Pandian, was witnessed when Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) Supremo Nitish Kumar’s advisor Manish Verma, a 2000-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre, formally joined the JD(U) and was made national general secretary of the party. He came to Bihar as senior bureaucrat on deputation in 2012.

Verma had taken voluntary retirement (VRS) in 2018, on the advice of Nitish Kumar and had since then been working as a close aide to the CM, as his key adviser in the CMO, wielding power over general governance and implementations of various projects and schemes.  

Now with Verma formally joining the JD(U), party insiders say that there is every possibility that he would be groomed to be an important leader in Kumar's JD(U).

Many in the party also see the move as part of Nitish Kumar’s plan to strike a balance among the second rung of leaders of his party including Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh (Lalan Singh) and recently promoted working president of the party and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Jha.   

However, since he took VRS in 2018, Manish Verma besides being adviser to the CM, also started working in organisational activities of the party. He played a key role in JD(U)’s campaign for the recent Lok Sabha polls.

He is credited with extensively touring all the 16 parliamentary constituencies the party contested as part of the ruling NDA alliance. The JD(U) won 12 of those seats and emerged as the third largest constituent of the ruling alliance at the Centre.

Unlike Pandian, who was fromTamil Nadu and was allotted Odisha cadre, Manish Verma, though an Odisha cadre officer, was from Bihar and opted to com to his home state on deputation. He hails from Nitish Kumar’s home district of Nalanda in Bihar and is from the CM’s caste.

His father Dr Ashok Verma has been a prominent doctor in Biharsharif (a township in the district). Verma had his primary education from a government school in Biharsharif. He also studied at a school in Patna before completing his BTech in Civil Engineering from IIT, Delhi. Verma has also worked with the Indian Oil Corporation before cracking the UPSC in 2000.

Verma’s first posting was in Kalahandi, before becoming a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) in Gunupur, Rayagada in Odisha. He served in Odisha for 12 years before he was sent on deputation to Bihar.

However, independent political analysts feel given how bureaucrat-turned-politiians have often risen and then fallen in the state, it is to be seen how Manish Verma fares in the CM’s scheme of things.

One such case has been that of the celebrated IAS officer-turned Bihar politico RCP Singh. RCP Singh, who was once seen as Bihar’s shadow chief minister and someone who was the eyes and ears of Nitish Kumar. However quit the JD(U) in August 2022, after falling out with Kumar after being percieved as too lose to the BJP top brass.

"He later joined the BJP in May 2023. Since then, only bitterness has existed between Nitish and Singh,” said a keen observer of Bihar politics.

RCP Singh had his first meeting with Nitish when he was posted as private secretary to the then Union minister Beni Prasad Verma in 1996. A warm releationship was quickly formed between them. When Nitish became Union railway minister, Singh joined as his special secretary.

After Nitish became Bihar chief minister in November 2005, he took Singh on as the CM’s principal secretary. Singh grew in stature, assuming the moniker of ‘RCP Sir’ in political and administrative circles.

Singh, a 1984-batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, took voluntary retirement from the IAS in 2010 and Nitish promptly gave him a Rajya Sabha ticket.

In 2016, Nitish again nominated him to the Upper House. Such was Nitish’s faith in Singh that in December 2020, when the Bihar CM stepped down as JD(U) national president, he handed over the party’s reins to Singh, who also belonged to the CM’s caste and hailed from Nalanda district.