By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
DEHRADUN, 16 Jul: In a sudden move today, Pushkar Singh Dhami Government today transferred the District Magistrate of Dehradun and Senior Superintendent of Police. While the transfer of SSP Janmejaya Khanduri was being expected for some time by political analysts for two reasons, the shifting out of District Magistrate Dr R Rajesh Kumar has come as a rather unexpected and sudden move. Dr R Rajesh Kumar has been replaced as district magistrate by Sonika while Janmajeya Khanduri has been replaced by Dilip Singh Kunwar. Sonika is currently posted as Additional Secretary and she has been given the charge as District Magistrate as additional responsibility which is quite a surprising move in itself. District Magistrate’s responsibilities are generally considered to be a full time task and mixing them with the responsibilities as Additional Secretary is generally not seen. Besides this, some days ago, she had been given additional charge as CEO Smart City Project replacing Rajesh Kumar only and therefore it becomes clear that the CM might have been considering to appoint her as DM Dehradun since then only. She is a 2010 batch IAS Officer. R Rajesh Kumar was considered by people amongst the most people-centric District Magistrates and was regularly seen in the field not just in his offices. He had launched some special drives as DM against overrating by liquor vendors as well as against illegal mining. Incidentally, he was transferred out today but has been kept in waiting. His new place of posting is not finalised so far though, sources claimed that he could be transferred to some other district or given charge as Additional Secretary in the Secretariat. This development indicates that another list of transfers is under preparation. Sources claimed that more transfers are likely in coming days.
Khanduri’s transfer according to the political analysts comes on the other hand on expected lines. First of all, Khanduri had recently been promoted to the rank of Deputy Inspector General (DIG) and therefore it was only a matter of time before he would have to be transferred. Sources also claimed that Khanduri was not considered to be close to the Dhami camp and that the government was not particularly happy with the way he had handled certain sensitive cases. Khanduri has been transferred to the Police Headquarters as DIG.
Dilip Singh Kunwar had recently been transferred to Dehradun Police Headquarters as SSP, PAC in January this year just before the assembly elections while he was posted as SSP Udham Singh Nagar. Kunwar is known to have a clean image. He had been removed as SSP Udham Singh Nagar in compliance of the orders of Election Commission just before the elections.
