On April 2, the Election Commission of India (ECI) mandated the transfer of two IAS and six IPS officers in Odisha ahead of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
The transferred IPS officers are:
Mr. Ashis Singh (2004 batch), the incumbent IGP (central range); Mr. Kanwar Vishal Singh (2010 batch), the DCP of Cuttack district; Mr. Jugal Kishore Banoth (2011 batch), SP of Khordha district; Mr. Mitrabhanu Mohapatra (2010 batch), SP of Rourkela district; Mr. Saravana Vivek Kumar (2015 batch), SP of Berhampur SP district; and Mr. Sudhanshu Sekhar Mishra (2012 batch), the SP of Angul district.
The transferred IAS officers are:
Mr. Vineet Bharadwaj (2012 batch), the district collector of Cuttack, and Ms. Parul Patwari (2015 batch), the district collector of Jagatsinghpur.
The ECI instructed Odisha’s chief secretary, Mr. PK Jena (1989 batch IAS) to suggest the names of three alternative officers for each officer being transferred, so it could select one from among the three for each of the positions.