NEW DELHI: The Centre has removed four officials from environment minister Bhupender Yadav’s office. The officials are Yadav’s private secretary, assistant private secretary and two additional private secretaries.Yadav’s private secretary, Amar Singh, a 2010 batch IRS officer, was removed on “administrative grounds”. The appointments of assistant private secretary Siddharth Yadav and an additional private secretary, Ayush Saran, both political appointees, were terminated with immediate effect. The other additional private secretary, Shailesh Kumar Singh – a Central Secretariat Service official – was “prematurely repatriated” to his parent cadre, department of personnel and training.While political and bureaucratic circles speculated about the possible trigger, Jairam Ramesh of Congress raised suspicions of a scam. “The news of the sackings of four members of the staff of the Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change is shocking. It is no secret how such appointments are made in the first place during the Modi regime. Can there be so much smoke without any fire? Could this be an instance of the Pradhan Mantri Chanda Do Dhandha Lo scheme having gone awry?” he wrote on X.The officials were removed through four different orders issued on July 3. The ministry has not given any specific reason for their abrupt removal.