The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has transferred 37 IAS officials and promoted Gorakhpur district magistrate Rajiv Rautela, who sparked controversy on Wednesday for stopping journalists from accessing details at the Lok Sabha bypoll counting centre.
While Rautela has been promoted as divisional commissioner of Devipatan, 16 district magistrates has been transferred, an official told news agency ANI on Saturday. The bureaucratic reshuffle was effected late on Friday.
In a list released on Friday, K Vijayendra Pandian has been brought in place of Rajiv Rautela as new Gorakhpur DM. Deepak Agarwal, commissioner of Saharanpur Division has been made the new divisional commissioner of Varanasi. Replacing Deepak Agarwal, Chandra Prakash Tripathi has been made the new Saharanpur divisional commissioner.
K Ravindra Naik, commissioner of Azamgarh has been replaced by SVS Ranga Rao, who was earlier the Devipatan divisional commissioner of Gonda district in UP.
Azamgarh DM Chandra Bhushan Singh has been made the new DM of Aligarh.
Shivakant Dwivedi, Chitrakoot DM replaced Chandra Bhushan Singh and became the new DM of Azamgarh.
The incident came to light after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday lost the bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur to Samajwadi Party (SP).
In an unprecedented move, Rautela on Wednesday walked into the counting centre for the Lok Sabha bypoll and stopped personnel from giving updates to the media when gap between the Samajwadi Party and the BJP candidate narrowed down. He also banned reporters from entering the counting area despite their having valid election commission passes. The media regained access after protests and outrage by opposition leaders.
(With agency inputs)
