Facing all sorts of pulls and pressures, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has picked up Subhas Khuntia (IAS:1981:KN) as Chief Secretary to the Govt of Karnataka. Khuntia will replace incumbent Arvind Jadhav whose term ends on September 30. He was repatriated to his parent cadre from GoI last week Khuntia will have a tenure of one year and four months as chief secretary. Khuntia is the second senior most IAS officer in the state civil list. Upendra Tripathy, the senior-most officer, is retiring in October and hence, his appointment to the post of the chief secretary, may not have been considered, an official source said. Siddaramaiah was under immense pressure to choose between Khuntia and additional chief secretary K Ratnaprabha. With the alleged controversy surrounding Arvind Jadhav and Ms Ratnaprabha CM Siddaramaiah opted for Khuntia. The appointment was done after careful deliberation to avoid any further embarrassment to the image of the government. Before moving to New Delhi, Khuntia worked in several departments and organisations in the state, including BBMP, public works, and power. He has a Ph.D. in Economics and has done his masters in Sociology, Physics and Computer Science.