No SPs for Mehsana and Sabarkantha yet

AHMEDABAD: After relieving Mehsana SP AK Sharma and Sabarkantha SP Nitiraj Solanki, the state government is yet to decide on the officials to be posted in order to replace them, even as the deadline set by the Election Commission on Saturday has long lapsed.Sources in the government said that the EC directive to assign no work related to maintenance of law and order during the elections to these officers, had caretaker Chief Minister Narendra Modi "very cut up".For the time-being, DIG (CID, crime) Rakesh Asthana, who is also handling the crucial Godhra train carnage investigations, has been put in charge of Mehsana, while DIG E Radhakrishnaiah will be in charge of Sabarkantha district, at least, till the elections.Apparently, after the EC directive that a panel of names be submitted by 5 pm on Saturday, a marathon meeting of bureaucrats and police officers concluded, with three names of SP level officials.These officials are Vivek Srivastava, Atul Karwal and Himanshu Bhatt. Incidentally, two of these officers were "shifted" from their earlier posts in other districts for actions that peeved the state government, during the riots.While Asthana and Radhakrishnaiah will be in charge of law and order, the Dy SPs (headquarters) of the respective districts have been put in charge of the districts.Although officials in the state government maintain that the panel is yet to be readied, the signals are that there may not be any decision on the incumbents till the election process is done with. Till then, DySP DL Parmar will be in charge of Sabarkantha and AJ Mistry will be in charge of Mehsana.