Cops sidelined, state rejigs IAS

Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government on Wednesday sent two senior Kolkata cops to "compulsory waiting", reportedly a fallout of poll-day excesses. DC (DD-2) Nagendra Tripathi was caught on camera slapping the owner of landmark sweet shop Nakur hours after the April 21 polls; Joint commissioner (crime) Debasish Boral reportedly had to bear the fallout of an active Anti-Rowdy Squad and plainclothes detectives on poll-day.
Niloo Sherpa Chakraborty wil now take over as DC (DD-2) and Vishal Garg, the STF chief, will additionally handle the Ddtective department. The state had earlier sent the poll-time Kolkata Police Commissioner Soumen Mitra to Barrackpore as ADG (training).
Earlier, four IPS officers, including three DCPs of Kolkata Police - Santosh Pandey (South suburban division), Dhrubajyoti De (eastern suburban division), Sumanjit Ray (southeast division) and South Dinajpur SP Rashid Munir Khan (formerly DC Southwest) - were put on compulsory waiting. Pandey was removed as he was in charge of Jadavpur, where Trinamool lost.
To allow new state police DGP Surajit Kar Purakayastha to handpick his team, the state appointed Dr Rajesh Kumar as ADG (CID), Ramphal Pawar as ADG (anti-corruption bureau), Dr Sudhir Mishra as ADG (administration), Adhir Sharma as ADG (railways), M K Singh as ADG (provisioning) and Gangeshwar Singh as the ADG (intelligence branch). Tapan Kumar Das is now DIG, CID (special). P Nirajnayan is director, civil defence.
The state also effected a reshuffle of the bureaucracy within 24-hours, re-posting the officers it posted the day before. Sanjay Bansal, appointed the joint secretary of health department, was posted as DM of Hooghly on Wednesday. Bansal was DM of Hooghly prior to the polls. The EC shifted him to personnel & administrative reforms (P&AR) department. While all other senior IAS and IPS officers were reinstated, Bansal had been left out. B P Gopalika, who was earlier principal secretary of municipal affairs department and on Tuesday was made head of the co-operative department, will now be heading the food processing and horticulture department. He replaces CM Bachchwat, who will head the consumer affairs department.
V Lalithalakhsmi, who was made Jalpaiguri DM on Tuesday, was replaced by Mukta Arya on Wednesday. Pritha Sarkar, outgoing DM of Jalpaiguri, was made additional secretary, health department. Subrata Biswas, principal secretary, housing department, was made principal secretary of refugee relief and rehabilitation (RR&R) department on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, Biswas was posted with the co-operative department. Sanghamitra Ghosh is now the secretary of RR&R department.