More officials likely to be removed in UP: EC

Lucknow, Mar 15(UNI) After transferring key officials in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, the Election Commission (EC) today indicated that more transfers of senior officials were likely before the first phase of Assembly elections in the state, slated for April 7.

The Commission is in the process to fill the posts, including that of the DGP and Home Secretary, which fell vacant after the removal of officials yesterday.

The EC had removed DGP Bua Singh and Principal Secretary (Home) S K Agarwal, along with six other senior officials, and had asked the state government to send the panel of names to replace them.

EC sources here said several officials were under the scanner of the Commission, particularly for their role and closeness with the ruling Samajwadi Party.

Opposition parties had already complained to Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami about the role of state chief secretary secretary N C Bajpai, Kanpur divisional commissioner Anita Jain Bhatnagar, DM and SSP of Rampur, along with several others, for their alleged biased role.

Mr Gopalaswami had assured the parties that all possible steps would be taken to ensure a ''free and fair'' seven-phase assembly polls in the state. He also hinted that they will not spare even the senior officials whose integrity was in doubt.

Besides the DGP and Home Secretary, the EC had transferred Additional DGP (law and order) A C Sharma, IG (Kanpur zone) Rizwan Ahmed, Divisional Commissioner (Meerut) Devdutt, DM Saharanpur Anil Kumar, DM Etah Ram Kumar and SSP (Meerut) Navneet Sikera.

The EC has already made four new postings and appointed V K Maurya DIG (Meerut range) who replaced Shailendra Pratap Singh.

Special Secretary (Home) Kamal Saxena would be the new DIG (Agra range), replacing Akhilesh Mehrotra.

Ajay Mohan Sharma has been made SP (city) Ghaziabad, while Virendra Bahadur Singh Additional SP (Lakhimpur Kheri), replacing Bharat Singh Yadav.

The EC has also directed the state government not to post the removed officials in the particular districts, where they were posted nor engage them in any poll-related work.

UNI