DGP’s Central assignment sparks political row

A day after Maharashtra Police chief Subodh Kumar Jaiswal opted for a Central assignment, the opposition BJP lashed out at the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government and accused it of not taking senior officers into confidence.

However, the MVA government said that Jaiswal has himself sought a Central assignment.

Jaiswal, a 1985-batch IPS Maharashtra-cadre officer, who was the director general of police has now been made the director general of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).

Jaiswal has earlier stints with the Centre and worked with the Special Protection Group (SPG) and Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW).

He has worked as Mumbai Police commissioner and Maharashtra DGP in the state.

Meanwhile, leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis said that the government is not taking senior officers into confidence. “This has happened in Maharashtra for the first time when a DGP heading the state has sought central appointment,” said Fadnavis, an ex-chief minister, who had headed the home department.

“The police force comes under the home department but still it is an independent agency…the home minister and chief minister oversees the functioning,” he said, adding that there was too much interference including on issue of transfer which have perturbed Jaiswal.

On the other hand, minister of state for home Shamburaj Desai said that the transfer was as per the wishes of Jaiswal. “He himself has sought that he be moved to the Centre,” he said.