The strange punishment given by the Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh to 16 senior IPS officers, keeping them in waiting without giving them any posting is understood to have upset senior IPS officers.
The recent memo given to these IPS officers asking them to come to the police headquarters regularly at 10 am, sign the attendance register and wait in the officers’ waiting room without any work, has caused a hush talk among the IPS fraternity.
Naidu might have his own reasons for giving them this kind of punishment, as he, his family and his Telugu Desam Party leaders had suffered a lot in the hands of these 16 IPS officers whose names were recorded in the “red book” wielded by Lokesh during his Yuva Galam padayatra.
But many officers are said to be of the view that refusing them postings, keeping them in waiting and asking them to register their attendance at the DGP office will send a wrong signal to the entire IPS community.
Especially, the targeted IPS officers include two DGP rank senior IPS officers – P.S.R. Anjaneyulu and P.V. Sunil Kumar, an Additional DG-rank IPS officer N. Sanjay and three IG-rank IPS officers - Kanthi Rana Tata, G. Pala Raju and Kolli Raghu Ram Reddy.
“If Naidu wants to teach them a lesson for harassing him during the YSRCP regime, he can give them insignificant postings. But it is not correct on his part to humiliate all-India service officers who are bound to work at the directions of the party in power,” a senior IPS officer observed.
A couple of senior IPS officers are planning to represent the matter to Naidu as they feel the latter can understand the situation.
“If these officials have done any mistake and violated the law, the government can as well suspend them and register cases against them,” the officer said.
Sources said Naidu, too, doesn’t want to drag the matter too long. He wants to make these pro-Jagan IPS officers understand that they cannot flout the rules to target the opposition leaders.
“It will be a temporary punishment. Except a few of these IPS officers, all the others would get postings sooner or later,” sources said.
