Bihar govt notifies Sudhir Rakesh as new Home Secretary

Patna: Acting on the order of Election Commission, the Bihar government today issued notification making senior IAS officer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh as Home Secretary in place of Amir Subhani and also appointed nine new District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police.

Rakesh, a 1983-batch IAS officer, would also look after General Administration Department (GAD) in addition to Home department which was also under Subhani, a notification issued by GAD said.

1987 batch IAS officer Suhani will swap position with Rakesh and will look after Panchayati Raj department as its Principal Secretary.

But Suhani would continue to be Principal Secretary of Minority Affairs department, as per the notification.

Subhani had occupied the post of Home Secretary for nearly seven years.

BJP during its interaction with Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and others in Patna had given a representation to remove Subhani from Home department.

The notification also named nine District Magistrates and seven Superintendent of Police rank officers for new posting as per EC directives.

Pratima S K Verma and Vikash Vaibhav returned as DM and SSP of Patna barely 12 days after their transfer by the state government.

The present DM and SSP of Patna Sanjay Kumar Aggarwal and Manu Maharaj return to their old posting at Gaya in accordance with the EC order.

Among others, Kumar Ravi returns as Darbhanga DM while Kuldeep Narayan would be new Madhubani DM.

The Election Commission had yesterday ordered the transfer of state Home Secretary Amir Subhani, nine district magistrates and seven senior police official including SPs and SSPs and said those transferred from districts should not be posted to any election-related post.

It had also asked the state Chief Secretary to send the poll body with a 'compliance report' within 24 hours along with copies of transfer orders.