Another administrative shake-up in UP govt

Three senior officials of secretary rank were also transferred. As many as 52 senior IAS officers, including three principal secretaries, 15 secretaries and commissioners and 34 district magistrates and special secretaries had been transferred on October 23. The district magistrates of Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Farrukhabad, Jalaun, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Baghpat, Sant Kabir Nagar and Kannauj were replaced on Sunday, the release said.

Director of Cultural Affairs Mangla Prasad mishra was appointed as Commissioner of Chitrakoot Dham, while Special Secretary(Appointments) Sita Ram Meena took over as the district magistrate of Kanpur (City) replacing B S Bhullar.

District Magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar Manoj Singh was shifted to adjoining Ghaziabad, replacing Alok Kumar who was transferred to Lucknow as Managing Director of Tourism Development Corporation. Among the secretaries shifted on Sunday were Promila Shanker, Director of the State Planning Institute, who takes over as Secretary of Dairy and Animal Husbandry Department, while previous incumbent Lalit Srivastava was posted as the chiefAmong the transferred IPS officials were the district police chiefs of Unnao, Mirzapur, Hathras, Aligarh, Sonebhadra, Kanpur (City), Kanpur (Rural), Ballia, Etawah, Moradabad, Shahjehanpur, Badaun, Banda and Mau. The DIGs of Faizabad, Varanasi, Moradabad, Kanpur, Devi-Patna and Bareilly ranges were reshuffled on Sunday, the release said, adding Inspector General Police (CB-CID) S P Srivastava was posted as IG (Crime), Lucknow. Meanwhile, Loktantrik Congress Party (LCP), amajor partner in the Uttar Pradesh Government, on Sunday dismissed the reported move to replace party president Naresh Agarwal saying there was no “resentment” against him.

The rank and file of the party was solidly behind Agarwal and there was no “resentment” against him, LCP spokesman Dayaram Misra said in a statement here. Senior leader and minister Fateh Bahadur Singh had been quoted in a section of the press as saying that Agarwal should be removed from party presidentship.

There was reportedly some rift within the party over the issue of Kalyan Singh’s continuance as the Chief Minister. While Agarwal had said BJP should take the coalition partners into confidence on the leadership issue, 10 of the 18 LCP MLAs held a meeting on October 29 saying there was no alternative to Singh and he should be allowed to continue as the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, Misra said the party was opposed to the State Government’s decision to impose entry-tax on certain commodities. The move would directly affect thepoorer section of the society, he said.