Bengal sees two new DGPs in 24 hours; EC approves new home secretaries in five other states

New Delhi: West Bengal saw two new top cops in less than 24 hours as the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday picked Sanjay Mukherjee as the new Director General of Police, replacing Vivek Sahay, who was appointed to succeed Rajeev Kumar at the helm of the state’s law-enforcement apparatus.

Rajeev Kumar is purportedly close to the state’s chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, Mamata Banerjee. In March 2021, the EC had suspended Sahay, who was then the director of security, following an incident during the state assembly elections campaign, where Banerjee sustained a leg injury.

The EC on Tuesday also approved the appointment of Deepak Kumar as the new Additional Chief Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs in Uttar Pradesh. Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer since 1990, previously served as the Finance Secretary of the state. He replaces Sanjay Prasad, who was reportedly close to Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. 

The commission had on Monday asked for the removal of Prasad and the incumbent home secretaries of five other states: Gujarat, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and Himachal Pradesh. These officials were also overseeing the offices of the respective chief ministers in their states.

The commission gave its nod to the appointment of A K Rakesh, an IAS officer of the 1989 batch, as the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) of Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, replacing Pankaj Joshi.

The EC also approved the appointment of Pratyaya Amrit, Onkar Sharma, Vandana Dadel, and Dilip Jawalkar as the new home secretaries of Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand respectively.

The ruling TMC in West Bengal accused the EC of acting at the behest of the BJP. This accusation came after the commission wrote a letter to the state’s chief secretary B P Gopalika on Monday, asking for the removal of Kumar from the office of the Director General of Police of West Bengal immediately. The EC further directed reassigning him to a post not related to the conduct of elections. Additionally, the EC stated that the next most senior officer at the police headquarters should take over the charge from Kumar and continue until the appointment of the new DGP.

Sahay, who joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1988, was appointed as the police chief immediately after Kumar's removal on Monday. However, the EC requested the appointment of Mukherjee on Tuesday as the new DGP, selecting him from a list of three officers sent by the state government itself.

Kumar had previously been removed as Commissioner of Police in Kolkata ahead of the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal. He was also removed by the EC from the office of the Additional Director General (Crime Investigation Department) before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Banerjee, the TMC supremo and the state’s chief minister since 2011, staged a demonstration in February 2019 after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) moved to arrest Kumar, an IPS officer of the 1989 batch, in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam. He was appointed as the state's police chief in December 2023.