THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a crucial development ahead of the new state police chief selection, Ravada A Chandrasekhar, who is the second senior-most IPS officer from the Kerala cadre, and is in the fray for the post of the SPC, met CM Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday. The meeting gains significance at a time when hardly 10 days remain for the government to finalise a new state police chief.
The visit of the officer, a special director with the Intelligence Bureau, holds significance as he is the second name in the list that the state government has forwarded to the UPSC.
The UPSC is expected to meet earlier next week to prepare a shortlist of three officers from which the state government is at liberty to pick its man. Nitin Agrawal, Ravada A Chandrasekhar, Yogesh Gupta and Manoj Abraham, and ADGPs S Suresh and M R Ajith Kumar are the six officers, who are in the race to replace incumbent State Police Chief Sheik Darvesh Saheb, who is retiring on June 30. There were reports that the government wanted to avoid the possibility of having to choose the next top cop from the three senior-most IPS officers — Nitin, Ravada and Yogesh — who are expected to be included in the UPSC shortlist, and with whom the government has a frayed equation.
The Centre had announced that Ravada will be appointed as secretary (security) in the cabinet secretariat from August 1.
