With Telangana DGP set to retire, will KCR go the Andhra way to pick his successor?

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BySouth First Desk

Published Dec 24, 2022 | 6:24 PMUpdatedApr 07, 2023 | 10:27 PM

CV Anand and Anjani Kumar are said to be the front runners for the post of Telangana DGP.

In just about a week, Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) Mahender Reddy will retire, and speculating about his successor is the current pastime in police and political circles .

Under normal circumstances, this is how a new DGP is picked: The state government sends names of five DG-rank IPS officers with 30 years’ service to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The UPSC approves three of the five names. And the state picks one of them as its DGP.

But over the years, the appointment of DGPs has become a tug-of-war between states and the UPSC. This, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has, time and again, reiterated the need for the UPSC’s involvement in the appointment process — for instance, the landmark Prakash Singh judgement of 2006.

That has, however, not prevented states from trying to bypass this process by taking the legal route, or using executive orders. As “police” and “public order” are state subjects, they insist a DGP’s appointment should exclusively be in the their domain.

Telangana also seems to have adopted this stance. A high-ranking state police officer told South First that the government has not sent any names to the UPSC, and that the decision on the state’s top cop will be “one man’s call”, a not-so-oblique reference to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

One wonders whether Telangana will now take a leaf out of how the Andhra Pradesh government handled the appointment of its DGP.

In February this year, the YSRCP government of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy rather unceremoniously shunted out then DGP Gautam Sawang. This was unusual as, once named DGP, officers usually retire in the post.

In his place, Jagan picked state intelligence chief KV Rajendranath Reddy and gave him “full additional charge”, or FAC, as state DGP. In the process, he overlooked as many as 11 officers who were senior to the 1992 batch Reddy. And 10 months down the line, the state government has shown no inclination to seek UPSC approval for a full-time DGP.

If KCR is planning something similar in Telangana, he should keep in mind one thing.

When a state does not appoint a full-time DGP, the Centre usually intervenes, initially with gentle reminders and later with more coercive measures. Clearly, given the “friendly” relations between YSRCP and the ruling BJP in Delhi, the Centre has turned a blind eye to what is happening in Andhra.

It is unlikely that it will adopt such a benign attitude towards KCR.

Meanwhile, the bets in Telangana police circles are on either Anjani Kumar (Anti-Corruption Bureau Director General) or CV Anand (Hyderabad City Police Commissioner) becoming the next DGP. Both of them, insiders say, enjoy the confidence of the powers that be.