Raipur, March 14 Chhattisgarh’s police officers are upset over the Election Commission’s decision to remove state police chief Vishwaranjan, saying it would negatively impact on the force. Days after the poll panel removed Vishwaranjan, a delegation of Indian Police Service (IPS) officers met Chief Minister Raman Singh Saturday to express their unhappiness over the decision. Vishwaranjan had been involved in a row with the poll body during the assembly elections in November 2008.
The delegation led by IPS Officers’ Association state president Ram Niwas, who is the additional director general of police, called on Singh and handed over a memorandum saying: “The EC’s decision will have a negative impact on morale of the police force fighting Maoists in the state.” The delegation, which included several top-ranking IPS officials of the state, urged the chief minister to ask the EC to “reconsider its decision”.
Chhattisgarh’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government Tuesday received a letter from the Commission demanding Vishwaranjan’s removal from the post ahead of the April 16 Lok Sabha poll in the state and sought a list of names of senior police officers who could succeed him.
The government Thursday recommended the names of A.K. Nawani and S.K. Paswan for the post although the chief minister termed the Commission’s decision as “one-sided and unfortunate”.
The Commission Friday cleared name of Nawani as the new police chief.
Vishwaranjan, a former additional director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) who took charge as police chief of the state in July 2007, had applied to the government for three months leave March-May in anticipation of the Commission’s action.
The state government, which had initially rejected the application saying it would affect the morale of the police fighting Maoist insurgents, approved it Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment