Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister-elect YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to pick Stephen Ravindra, a 1999-batch IPS officer presently working in Telangana, to be the state's Intelligence Chief. Even as Stephen's name was doing the rounds as one of the possible candidates for the post, the top cop met Jagan at his Tadepalli residence in Amaravati on Monday, triggering further speculation.
Stephen also served as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Jagan's father and former AP CM YS Rajasekhar Reddy.
According to reports, Jagan made a request to his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao during their meeting earlier this week, who willingly agreed to relieve the IPS officer. The Centre will now need to clear the inter-state deputation.
Stephen is also presently the Investigating Officer (IO) in the IT Grids case which took the two Telugu states by storm in March this year. The Cyberabad police had booked a case against IT Grids, a firm hired by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), on charges that sensitive data including personal information of citizens of Andhra Pradesh was being processed illegally by the company without the consent of citizens. The data was allegedly used by the company for an app developed by it for TDP cadres.
The subsequent events that unfolded, triggered a row and the Telangana government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Stephen Ravindra, for a thorough investigation into the case.
The move also assumes significance as Jagan's predecessor, Chandrababu Naidu, was locked in a bitter battle with the Election Commission in the run-up to the polls, with the poll panel transferring State Intelligence chief A.B. Venkateswara Rao. The EC later also shunted out Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary Anil Chandra Punetha for allegedly defying its order to transfer three top police officials including Venkateswara Rao.
In place of Punetha, the poll panel had appointed L V Subrahmanyam, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1983 batch, as the new Chief Secretary. Subrahmanyam is likely to continue as the Chief Secretary and was one of the first bureaucrats to arrive at Jagan's residence on May 23 as the results were being announced. Subrahmanyam, who had also played a role in YSR's government, is expected to advice Jagan on reshuffling the bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, Andhra Director General of Police (DGP) R P Thakur is said to be on his way out and former Vijayawada Commissioner Gautam Sawang is reportedly going to be picked to head the state's police force. Gautam was also among a small group of senior officials who visited Jagan at his residence on the day of the results on May 23.