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EC orders transfer of 16 officials

The Election Commission today ordered the immediate transfer of 16 officers, including senior police officials, in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa.

In separate communications to the chief secretaries of the three states, the Election Commission observed that the presence of these officials in their present postings would not be conducive to the conduct of free and fair polling during the coming Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

Among the officers ordered transferred are the Chhindwara superintendent of police Shailesh Singh, project officer P K Shrivastava and sub-divisional magistrate S S Bhagel.

The commission observed that these officials had been posted in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, for a long time and it would be in the interest of a smooth election to post them out. The commission has also directed the shifting out of ten officials from Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh. These include four revenue officials of the rank of tehsildar and six police officers.

In a direction to the Maharashtra chief secretary, the commission directed the immediate transfer of the Sholapur district collector, who ordered the removal of a saffron flag from a famous temple at Pandarpur, which led to the flaring up of communal tension in the area.

The Orissa government has been told to shift out the revenue divisional commissioner and DIG, southern range.

Directing the transfer of the ten officials from Rewa district, the commission noted that they had been posted out during the 1998 general and assembly elections as it was felt that their presence would not be conducive to free and fair polling. The ten officials whose replacement has been ordered are 'tehsildars' R P Tripathi of Sirmaur, K C Saxena of Raipur Karhuliyan, S K Aggarwal of Hujur and Rajendra Tiwari of Najul and police officials R S Athiya, thana-in-charge of Sohagi, R P Tiwari, thana-in-charge of Chorhata, sub-inspector S M Upadhayay of Laur, sub-inspector Bhupendra Singh Yadav of Mangawan, asst sub-inspector Mohamed Yunu Khan of Panwar and head constable Chhotelal Pandey of Shahpur.

UNI

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