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Within less than 24 hours of the Election Commission of India ordering transferring of Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police (Intelligence) A B Venkateshwar Rao along with two SPs, Telugu Desam Party government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu retained the top cop violating the EC orders.
Naidu government initially issued orders attaching Venkateshwara Rao, besides Srikalulam SP Venkata Ratnam and Kadapa SP Rahul Dev Sharma to the police headquarters and directed them to hand over the charge to other senior-most officers, as per the EC directions.
But within hours, the transfer orders were withdrawn and a fresh GO was issued, confining the EC orders to only two SPs and Venkateshwar Rao’s name was removed, indicating that he would continue to be the state intelligence chief.
The government also issued a separate order listing out all the police officials – right from Director General of Police to the constable in a local police station, who would be directly working under the purview of the Election Commission, till the election process was completed.
Interestingly, the order does not have the name of DG (Intelligence) A B Venkateshwar Rao, indicating that he does not fall under the purview of the EC, just like Chief Secretary.
It clearly shows that Naidu has decided to bypass EC orders and retain the intelligence chief.
