RAJ IAS off to handle LS elections

Jaipur: The Election Commission has shortlisted 54 IAS officers from Rajasthan to fulfill the responsibilities of Election Observers, and their first-phase training has already been conducted. They will now be assigned duties phase-wise throughout the election period. For the first phase of polling on April 19, 11 IAS officers will be tasked.

These officers include Dinesh Kumar - Tamil Nadu, P. Ramesh - Nagaland, Himanshu Gupta - Tamil Nadu, Naveen Mahajan - Arunachal Pradesh, Rajendra Verma - Tamil Nadu, MP Meena - Tamil Nadu, Ravi Jain - Uttar Pradesh, Ravi Kumar Surpur - West Bengal, Kunji Lal Meena - Uttarakhand, Mukul Sharma - Meghalaya, and Piyush Samaria - Uttarakhand.

All these officials will have to remain at their duty stations from the last day of filing nominations until repolling, covering a period of 27 days. This means they will be on election duty from March 26 to April 21. Similarly, when officials are called for election duty for the 2nd phase until the 7th phase, they will have to be out of the state for approximately one month. Afterward, they will have to return for counting on June 4, which will last for 3-4 days, to their respective areas of duty.

Kunji Lal Meena’s charge has been given to Abhay Kumar, Dinesh Kumar’s charge to Aparna Arora, Naveen Mahajan’s to Bhaskar Sawant, Ravi Jain’s to AT Pednekar, Ravi Surpur’s to KK Pathak, P. Ramesh’s to T. Ravikant, Himanshu Gupta’s to Sunil Sharma, MP Meena’s to Ramawtar Meena, Mukul Sharma’s to PR Dhanuka, Peeyush Samariya’s to Mahesh Chand Sharma, & Rajendra Verma’s to Aslam Sherkhan.

Among these, the bureaucracy is abuzz with Sunil Sharma being given the additional charge of Commissioner, Industries, and Mahesh Chandra Sharma being given the additional charge of IG - Stamps and Registration. Ravi Kumar Surpur had a major responsibility of CCT, and this responsibility has been handed to KK Pathak, who has been grappling with the challenges of Secretary, Finance.