Election Commission (EC) is likely to replace the Director General of Police (DGP) and some others officials to ensure free and fair Assembly polls in the State.
The process has been initiated in the wake of complaints made by Opposition parties in the State. BJP had already complained against DGP Javeed Ahmed while social activist Nutan Thakur has given a list of state officials who could work as a cadre worker of the ruling Samajwadi Party. SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav too made the situation more complicated after he made a comment recently saying that his son and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was not ready to make a Muslim the State DGP and that Ahmed’s was posted just on his initiative.
According to sources, the EC has sought a panel of three senior IPS officers who could be replaced by Ahmed. He was made the DGP of UP superseding many senior IPS officers. The decision is likely to be taken within this week. The State Government has sent three names— DG training Sulkhan Singh, DG Fire Praveen Singh and DG Rail Gopal Gupta for the replacement of Ahmed. However, the Government did not send the name of the third senior most officer, Surya Kumar Shukla in the panel. Sources said that Sulkhan Singh had also wrote to Election Commission that he was not interested to became DGP.
Similarly, the Government has sent three names for the replacement of ADG( law and Order) Daljeet Choudhury. ADG (l&O) is the most important post during the elections, as he deploys the forces including the central forces. The three names sent for the ADG(l&O) are R K Vishwkarma, Aditya Mishra and Chandra Prakash.
It has now become a ritual in UP politics that DGP and Principal Secretary (Home) are changed during the Assembly elections. In 2007, the then DGP Bua Singh was replaced by G l Sharma while in 2012, Brijlal was replaced by Atul Kumar. Similarly, for the post of principal secretary (Home), in 2007, S K Agarwal was removed and K Chandramauli was appointed in his place by the EC and in 2012, Kunwar Fateh Bahadur was replaced by Manjit Singh. But surprisingly, in the lok Sabha elections of 2009 and in 2014, the EC did not take the pain to change the DGPs. In 2014, Al Banerjee was the DGP of the State while in 2009, Vikram Singh was the DGP.