The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Mohanty’s term lasted just 60 days

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Friday, May 22, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Mohanty’s term lasted just 60 days

N. Rahul

HYDERABAD: Director General of Police A.K. Mohanty served a term of just sixty days, stepping in on March 23 on the intervention of Election Commission which took a serious view of his predecessor S.S.P. Yadav’s remarks in praise of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and ordered his replacement well ahead of first phase of polling.

Mr. Mohanty handed over temporary charge to Additional Director General of Police (Welfare) Umesh Kumar on Thursday evening. Mr. Yadav will return to the post on Friday afternoon following the government’s decision to re-induct him at the expiry of the election code.

The sixty days that Mr. Mohanty spent in office during which he was on leave for eight days to take law exams was a challenging term for him going by the volume of cash and liquor seized by police during election campaign.

The police seized Rs. 37.08 crore, mostly belonging to Congress candidates, and booked over 15,000 cases of liquor.

MIM opposition

The outgoing DGP also faced opposition to his appointment from the MIM.

An intra-departmental circular issued by him expressing apprehension that MIM might create trouble and his camping in the old city on the day of polling snowballed into a major controversy as the party president Asaduddin Owaisi challenged the former to visit the area as a common man.

Mr. Owaisi wondered why the DGP chose to visit old city and not Tadipatri in Anantapur district where trouble broke out on the day of polling.

Remarks

His remarks were taken to the notice of the Election Commission which exonerated him. Meanwhile, Mr. Owaisi was booked by police for chasing a CPI (M) worker with a stick at a polling booth in Sultan Shahi on election day. Police officers also were peeved at the functioning of Mr. Mohanty as he had issued numerous circulars during his short stint.

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Andhra Pradesh