By IANS,
Chandigarh: With the Punjab assembly elections just over seven months away, the opposition Congress has complained to the prime minister and the Election Commission (EC) about two senior state government officers with “political ambitions”.
Punjab Congress president and former chief minister Amarinder Singh Wednesday said he has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the political activities of Director General of Police P.S. Gill and the principal secretary to the chief minister, D.S. Guru, who were acting as the activists of the ruling Akali Dal.
Addressing reporters here, Amarinder Singh said he has also raised the issue of these two officers, who are holding sensitive and public dealing posts, with the EC but the commission cannot do much till elections are announced in the state.
“I have written to the prime minister as IAS (Indian Administrative Service) and IPS (Indian Police Service) are central services and fall under the purview of the central government, which can always take appropriate action in the cases of violation of service rules, as is being done by Gill and Guru,” Amarinder said.
He said he had nothing personal against the two officers and they were free to contest from wherever and whichever party they wanted to.
“But they cannot misuse their official position for that purpose as this is gross violation of the service rules. They should resign first if they want to contest elections,” he said.
Amarinder Singh said the Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance government in Punjab was misusing officers to serve its political ends.
Of the 24 posts of district police chiefs, only two were being handled by IPS officers, while the rest were being managed by Punjab Police Service (PPS) officers hand-picked by the present government, he added.
Amarinder Singh alleged that his phones were being tapped by the Punjab vigilance department at the behest of vigilance chief Sumedh Singh Saini.
“I don’t mind anybody tapping my phones, much less Mr. Saini. By now, he must have realized that he has only wasted his time,” he said.