Bihar DGP in limelight over SSR case takes VRS, may contest Assembly poll as NDA nominee

Bihar Director General of Police (DGP) Gupteshwar Pandey, who was in the news recently due to his comments in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, on Tuesday late evening took voluntary retirement after 33 years in service. He is likely to contest the ensuing Bihar Assembly election from Buxar constituency as an NDA candidate.

The Home Department issued a notification on Tuesday late night granting Pandey voluntary retirement. It apparently waived off the condition of applying for VRS three months in advance. The Home Department also issued another notification giving the additional charge of Bihar DGP to SK Singhal, who is presently DG, Home-guards and Fire Services.

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Speculations were rife that Pandey, the 1987-batch IPS officer, may soon give up ‘khakhi’ (uniform) and don ‘khadi’ as his inclination towards politics was quite apparent. Ahead of 2009 Lok Sabha election too, he had applied for VRS and was speculated to contest the parliamentary poll as a BJP nominee from Buxar. But soon, he took back his VRS application for reasons unknown.

Recently, he hogged the limelight when he gave statements in favour of Patna-born actor Sushant Singh Rajput and his family, while deriding the deceased’s live-in partner Rhea Chakraborty. His infamous comment challenging the model-actor Chakraborty's 'aukaat' in questioning the Bihar CM created an uproar.

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Sushant’s cousin Neeraj is a BJP legislator in Bihar and the saffron party has made several attempts to make Sushant’s death an emotive issue for the ensuing Bihar poll. Pandey’s statements as Bihar DGP too were seen in this context, with the Maharashtra Government, Mumbai Police and the Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut charging the top cop with speaking the language of politics.

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Born at Buxar in 1961, Pandey was made Bihar DGP in January 2019 and was scheduled to retire in February 2021. “But he decided to hang his boots five months in advance,” a senior IPS officer told Deccan Herald on Wednesday, adding that Pandey’s batchmate Sunil Kumar, another DG-rank IPS officer, too took retirement last month to join the JD (U). Sunil is speculated to contest as the JD (U) candidate from Bhore in Gopalganj.