Lucknow: Rajeev Krishna, a 1991 batch IPS officer, has been appointed the acting director general of police (DGP) of Uttar Pradesh, the fifth in a row.
He replaces Prashant Kumar, 1990 batch, who was considered close to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Krishna’s appointment was announced in a government order late Saturday.
Before his appointment to the DGP post, Krishna had the double charge of the directorate general (DG) of vigilance and the recruitment and promotion board.
Reacting to the appointment, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav hit out at the Yogi government for not appointing a permanent DGP.
“UP gets another acting DGP today. While leaving, he (Prashant Kumar) must be thinking about what he got and who kept proving every wrong to be right. If he had been loyal to the Constitution and the law instead of the person, he would at least have got respect in his own eyes,” former chief minister Yadav said in a post on X.
“Now it remains to be seen whether the new person is able to free himself from the web that he has woven in the entire state and deliver justice impartially, or else he too becomes a victim of politics by getting trapped in the same web.”
New rules not executed yet
In October 2024, the Yogi government framed new rules for the appointment of the state’s DGP, virtually enabling the state to have a final say in the appointment of the police chief. Earlier, the Centre had the final say, and the state had to send a list of eligible candidates to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which would recommend the name.
However, despite the rules being framed last year, they had not been executed till now. Explaining the delay, sources said state government functionaries were discussing the repercussions of the change in rules with legal experts. Furthermore, the state leadership was trying not to increase its rift with the Centre anymore.
In the past few years, there has been a growing confrontation between the Yogi government and the Centre over the selection of the DGP. Former DGP Prashant Kumar was the fourth acting DGP consecutively in the past two years. The last permanent DGP in the state was Mukul Goel, who was removed three years ago on the grounds of indiscipline.
Since then, five acting DGPs have been appointed, which also included D.S. Chauhan, R.K. Vishwakarma and Vijay Kumar.
SSP Agra—most impactful posting
Hailing from Gautam Buddha Nagar, Krishna joined the Indian Police Service in 1991. He has previously been posted as superintendent (SP) and then as senior superintendent (SSP) and has been in Firozabad, Etawah, Mathura, Fatehgarh, Bulandshahr, Noida, Agra, Lucknow and Bareilly.
In 2007, when the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) was formed in Uttar Pradesh, Krishna became its first deputy inspector general (DIG) and led the force.
Sources in UP police said that, apart from the recruitment board posting, one of the most impactful chapters of Krishna’s career was his tenure as SSP Agra in 2004, when he led crackdowns against notorious kidnapping gangs operating in the ravines.
Krishna’s wife, Meenakshi Singh, is an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officer and is currently posted as an income tax commissioner in Lucknow. Additionally, his brother-in-law, Rajeshwar Singh, was a joint director in ED and is now the BJP MLA from Sarojini Nagar assembly segment. Rajeshwar Singh’s wife, Laxmi Singh, is Noida police commissioner.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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