KOLKATA: The Election Commission of India appointed Sanjay Mukherjee, a 1989 IPS officer and son of former special advisor to Indrajit Gupta when he was the Union Home Minister, as the director general of police, West Bengal, on Tuesday. Mukherjee belongs to a decorated family as his former IAS brother Amitava Mukherjee presently working with World Bank, Washington, was selected as the chief of the state police a day after Vivek Sahay, a 1988 batch IPS officer, as the DGP of the state.The changes in the top level of the state police hierarchy took place after the ECI removed controversial IPS officer Rajeev Kumar from the post of the DGP on Monday, who was appointed by Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee three months ago, with immediate effect, within 5 pm on Monday.“The state government sent three names, Vivek Sahay, Sanjay Mukherjee and Rajesh Kumar, as the replacement of the IIT, Computer Science, IPS officer’s replacement, to the governor on Monday as the ECI’s order gave a deadline of 5 pm. The governor appointed Sahay as the new DGP. But it was later noticed that Sahay is scheduled to superannuate on May 31, four days before the results of the Lok Sabha polls. So, the poll panel appointed Mukherjee as the DGP who can serve till the model code of conduct (MCC) will be in place,” said a senior officer of the state Home department.Mukherjee earlier served in the Kolkata Police as a deputy commissioner of police, deputy commissioner of headquarters, additional director general of the CID before he took the charge as the commissioner of the Barrackpore police commissionerate in 2011. Elaborating on Rajeev Kumar’s removal, an official of the ECI said, “He was removed from the post of commissioner of Kolkata police in 2016 following complaints by political parties when the MCC was in place. So this is the standard operating procedure that if an officer is shunted from poll duty during the MCC by the commission, he or she will not be allowed to perform in electoral exercise during rest of service tenure.”
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