LS polls: EC transfers 2 IGs, 8 DMs, 12 SPs in five states; says it done as part of regular review

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Tuesday issued transfer orders for two inspectors general of police, eight district magistrates and 12 superintendents of police in five states as part of its ”regular review” for the Lok Sabha elections.

The decision was taken by the commission during a meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar along with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, the poll panel said.

The elections were announced by the commission on March 16 and will be held in seven phases between April 18 and June 1. Counting of votes is scheduled for June 4.

The Election Commission (EC) said that all the transferred officials have been asked to hand over their charge to their immediate junior officers. Those shunted out will not be assigned any election duty till the completion of the Lok Sabha polls, it said.

The respective state governments have been directed to send a panel of names of Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service officers to the commission and those short-listed will be appointed in the place of those transferred. Among those transferred are the inspectors general of police Guntur Range, Andhra Pradesh, and Central Range, Odisha.

The other officers are the district magistrate (DM) of Udalgiri in Assam; the DM and the superintendent of police (SP) of Bhojpur district, and the DM and the SP of Nawada district in Bihar.

The SP of Deoghar in Jharkhand, the DMs of Cuttack and Jagatsinghpur, the SPs of Angul, Behrampur, Khurda, Rourkela and the DCP (Cuttack) in Odisha have also been transferred.

In Andhra Pradesh, the DMs of Krishna, Ananthpuramu and Tirupati districts and the SPs of Prakasham, Palnadu, Chittoor, Anathpuramu and Nellore districts have been shunted out.

Separately, the EC has asked the Jharkhand chief secretary to fill up vacant posts of SP (Rural) Ranchi, deputy inspector general of police (Palamu) and IGP (Dumka) by sending a panel of names of officials to it.