Assembly elections in 5 states: 35 Gujarat IAS, 10 IPS officers to serve as poll observers

Gandhinagar: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has selected 35 Gujarat-cadre IAS officers and 10 IPS officers to serve as election observers for the assembly polls in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry. The training of these officials will begin in the first week of Feb, and the state govt will have to make arrangements for additional charge while these officers are away, sources in the govt said.The IAS officers selected are: Arti Kanwar, Sandeep Kumar, Roopwant Singh, Swaroop P, Pravin Solanki, Avantika Singh Aulakh, Rakesh Shankar, Raj Kumar Beniwal, Rajesh Manjhu, Rajendra Kumar, Rahul Gupta, P Bharathi, Ranjeet Kumar J, Harshad Patel, Alok Pandey, Jenu Devan, Sandip Sagale, Dilip Rana, Ardra Agarwal, Ranjit Kumar Singh, Dhaval Patel, Mahesh Patel, M Nagarajan, Praveena D K, Kuldeep Arya, Vijay Kharadi, Ratankanvar Gadhavicharan, Ajay Prakash, D D Jadeja, Amit Arora, Harshit Gosavi, Stuti Charan, Ashish Kumar, Prabhav Joshi and Neha Kumari.Govt sources said that the IPS officers selected for election duties include A G Chauhan, Bipin Ahire, P L Mal, Makrand Chauhan, Vishal Vaghela, Deepak Meghani, Nirlipt Rai, Chaitanya Mandlik, Hitesh Joysar and Mayur Patil. Sources said the Gujarat govt has written to officers, asking them to report to the ECI.