CM Siddaramaiah sticks to seniority, appoints first woman DG & IG of Karnataka police

BENGALURU: Chief minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday appears to have dismissed all political considerations and stuck to his policy of giving the seniormost bureaucrat the top post by appointing the first woman director general and inspector general of police (DG&IG) of Karnataka police, Neelamani N Raju.This, despite political pressure from within his cabinet for superceding the woman officer with the next in line DG rank officer and former head of the CID, H C Kishore Chandra.After weeks of speculations, that Siddaramaiah may opt for a more “in-house” IPS officer in either Chandra or M N Reddi to head the state police force, Siddaramaiah decided to appoint Raju as the police chief.Chandra’s appointment was said to have been vociferously backed by the Vokkaliga ministers in the Siddaramaiah cabinet. It was speculated that the appointment of Chandra as the police force chief could have helped the party in an election year.However, the late afternoon meeting on October 30 between the CM and Raju appeared to have sealed the fate of Chandra and Reddi and made way for the senior most IPS to take charge of the state police force.“The policy of giving importance to seniority, and also the fact that giving a woman police officer a chance to head the force would bring a lot of good will for the government in election year, swung the pendulum in her favour,” said a CMO official.A 1983 cadre police officer, Raju was on central deputation for 23 years, and came back in early 2016 after a two decade gap in Karnataka service.Her last central deputation was with the intelligence bureau in New Delhi.On coming back to Karnataka service, Raju was kept waiting for over two months before posting her as the DG for internal security division.Raju’s husband, Narasimha Raju was the former additional chief secretary to chief minister Siddaramaiah between 2014 to 2016 and later had a short stint as the information commissioner of Karnataka after his retirement.The appointment of Raju comes as a boost to women police officers in the state and heralding a new outlook in the police outlook.However, despite Raju’s appointment, the next women IPS officer who is likely to be a contender for the top post will only come 17 years later.Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah also enforced a major reshuffle of the police top brass.