The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government in Andhra Pradesh has issued an unconventional memo to 16 IPS officers awaiting official postings, with instructions on how to report for duty in the future. The list of IPS officers includes two DGP-rank and one Additional DGP-rank official.
According to the internal memo issued by state DGP Dwaraka Tirumala Rao on August 12, the IPS officers have been officially instructed to report at the DGP office in Mangalagiri "at 10 am and sign in the attendance register available in the officers’ waiting room."
The officers have also been directed to record their sign-out time before leaving the office "after office hours without fail." The memo further states, "They are also instructed to be readily available to attend to any urgent work assigned…"
It is widely believed that the action against the IPS officers is based on allegations from the TDP camp that they were aligned with the then-ruling YSRCP while discharging their duties. Some of the IPS officers who have now been sidelined held key positions in the previous YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government. Among them is DGP-rank officer PSR Anjaneyulu, who was the intelligence chief in the last term, and another DGP-rank IPS officer, PV Sunil Kumar, who was the Crime Investigation Department (CID) chief probing the alleged Amaravati capital land scam.
Previously, based on a complaint by TDP MLA Raghu Ramakrishnam Raju, cases were filed against both IPS officers after TDP came to power.
Another officer, Additional DGP N Sanjay headed CID during the period when the current CM N Chandrababu Naidu was arrested in the alleged skill development scam. IGP-rank officer Kanthi Rana Tata served as the Vijayawada commissioner for a couple of years. Similarly, other junior IPS officers held the posts of SP in various districts. During the election period, the TDP leadership had alleged that false cases were being filed against their cadres by police officials at the behest of their political rivals, YSRCP.
Apart from 16 IPS officers, half a dozen others have either been reassigned to loop line postings or are awaiting postings since N Chandrababu Naidu took over as CM in the second week of June. More than half a dozen IAS officers, some of whom are perceived by the TDP to be close to the previous government, have also not been given any postings. IAS officer Praveen Prakash, known as the blue-eyed boy of former CM YS Jagan, had opted for voluntary retirement. The government has accepted his application and will relieve him in September, but it hasn’t given him a posting.
A section of the bureaucracy has criticised the TDP government's move, which results in the loss of perks like official drivers or cars for the officers. Former IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar, who contested on a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ticket in the previous Lok Sabha elections, expressed his discontent. "Vendetta and nonsense of the highest order!!!" he tweeted on this issue. "What do these sixteen officers do while they wait in a room? Wait for the call to attend to any urgent work? Or gossip? Or meditate?? Or cry on each other’s shoulders??? Or become guinea pigs in a Stanford-style experiment in psychology?" He added, "Is it not a sheer waste of public money to keep senior police officers waiting in a room when they are supposed to be capable and willing to work for the people?"
The YSRCP has also reacted to the issue. Former minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy called the treatment of the 16 IPS officers the "peak of unethical governance." Some of the lower-rung police officials have also not been given postings or have been transferred based on similar allegations.