SEC gets security cover
Move comes following Ramesh Kumar writing to Centre on risk to his life
The state government has enhanced the security cover of State Election Commissioner N. Ramesh Kumar following his recent decision to defer local body elections by six weeks because of the Covid pandemic.
Director-general of Police (DGP) Damodar Goutam Sawang issued directions doubling the security cover of Mr Kumar on Thursday.
At present, Mr Kumar has five security personnel of 1+ 4 order headed by an officer of the rank of subinspector, and personal security officers of 1+1 order. This will be upgraded to 10 security personnel of 2+8 order headed by a sub-inspector rank officer along with head constables and constables, in addition to personal security officers of 2+2 order.
The state election commissioner will now be protected by 14 state security personnel and 10 CRPF personnel.
The CRPF personnel were provided after AP’s DGP wrote a letter to the director general of the CRPF to allot CRPF personnel for the security cover of the election commissioner.
The AP DGP also spoke to the Telangana DGP on Wednesday night and requested him to provide security cover to Mr Kumar in Hyderabad. Mr Kumar lives in Hyderabad with his family.
The state government’s decision apparently had nothing to do with the letter purportedly written by the election commissioner to the Union home secretary seeking security cover for him because he feared trouble following his decision to defer the elections.
Some political parties are claiming credit for the extra security, saying that the state government had responded to their demands. But the state government holds it did not want to run the risk of any trouble caused to the election commissioner when the latter has the onerous task of conducting local body polls in a democratic and peaceful manner once the Covid-19 threat subsides.
A senior police officer told Deccan Chronicle that the state government had enhanced the security cover without even going into the debate of whether the controversial letter was actually written by the state election commissioner or was a fake.