New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, June 26 (IANS) The UPSC team, which met in New Delhi on Thursday to screen the list of top IPS officials to be considered for the post of the Kerala state police chief, has zeroed down on three candidates from the list given by the Pinarayi Vijayan government.

Apart from the Central government officials, the selection team also included Kerala Chief Secretary A.Jayatilak and outgoing DGP Sheikh Darvesh Saheb.

The list from Kerala included Nithin Agarwal, Ravadha Chandrasekhar, Yogesh Gupta, and Manoj Abraham (all of them holding the rank of the Director General of Police) and the Vijayan government purportedly tried its best to include two Additional Directors General of Police – Suresh Raj Purohit and Vijayan’s favoured M.R.Ajith Kumar, but this did not happen.

At the meeting, the name of Abraham was not considered, as the other three officers had a clean track record and were all senior to him.

So the first three in the list, according to their seniority, have been cleared, and now the ball is in Vijayan’s court to select one from Agarwal, Chandrasekhar and Gupta to be the next state police chief.

Among these three, Gupta by now has said to have become persona non grata to Vijayan, after being in his good books for long, and hence it could be either Agarwal or Chandrasekhar. In all likelihood, the coveted post could go to the latter.

Agarwal recently returned to Kerala after a long stint on central deputation, while Chandrasekhar, now posted with the Intelligence Bureau, was in the state capital city, and when he had a meeting with Vijayan last week, the word went around that he had expressed his desire to return to the state.

Now that the list is ready, Vijayan will have to hold a special cabinet meeting to decide on the next SPC as Saheb superannuates after his two-year extension ends on June 30.

–IANS

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