Navneet Sehgal’s journey: From UP bureaucrat for all seasons to Prasar Bharati chairman

Navneet Sehgal, a 1988-batch IAS officer who retired last July, has been perhaps the most sought after bureaucrat in Uttar Pradesh’s power corridors over the last two decades. Now, he is set to take over as the Prasar Bharati chairman, a post that had been lying vacant for four years.

“Prasar Bharti is known as the most reliable broadcaster. We will keep making efforts to give credible and unbiased news to people through Doordarshan and Aakashwaani,” Sehgal said in his first reaction over his new job.

Having served in almost all key posts in the UP government, Sehgal had been a popular bureaucrat with every chief minister cutting across party lines since 2002.

Though he had been sidelined after governments changed hands in 2012 and 2017, his absence was felt and within months he was brought back to the centre-stage of bureaucracy.

A Chandigarh native, Sehgal first came to the limelight when he was appointed the district magistrate of Lucknow by the then CM Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) during her brief tenure between 2002 and 2003. He was on the Central deputation during the succeeding Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) government. But soon after the BSP won the 2007 Assembly polls with a majority, Sehgal returned to his home cadre and cemented his utility to the extent that he remained one of the most powerful UP bureaucrats until his retirement.

Under the Mayawati government during 2007-2012, Sehgal’s prominence rose and helped him build a network of friends across states in diverse fields including politics, sports and films.

Known to be Mayawati’s most trusted bureaucrat, Sehgal held key posts as the secretary to the CM, and in the departments of urban development and estates, among others. At one