The cop for whom Mamata once sat on a dharna: Who is West Bengal DGP Rajeev Kumar moved out by EC?

In a reshuffle ahead of the Lok Sabha polls on Monday, the Election Commission (EC) moved West Bengal’s Director General of Police (DGP) Rajeev Kumar to the state’s Information and Technology department and appointed him its secretary.

Vivek Sahay, a 1988-batch IPS officer, serving as the Director General and Commandant General (Home Guards) has taken over as the state police chief. Sahay was previously in charge of security control of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and was suspended in March 2021 ahead of that year’s Assembly election after the CM injured her leg while campaigning in Nandigram.

Kumar has been at the centre of many controversies, with several Opposition leaders in West Bengal pointing to his alleged links with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). Ahead of the 2016 Assembly polls, Opposition leaders alleged that Kumar, the Kolkata Police commissioner at the time, was tapping their phones and acting at the TMC’s behest. Kumar was removed from the post at the EC’s direction. However, as soon as the polls were over, he was brought back as police commissioner.

About three years later, the Opposition reiterated its accusation. In February 2019, the CBI raided Kumar’s house in connection with the Sarada chit fund case. In an unprecedented move, Mamata Banerjee sat on a dharna at Kolkata’s Esplanade. After about 70-odd hours, Banerjee ended her dharna after the Supreme Court directed that no coercive steps, including arrest, should be taken against Kumar. The court directed Kumar to “faithfully cooperate” with the investigating agency.

Last December, when Kumar, who was serving as the secretary of the state IT department, was appointed the state’s DGP, the officer’s alleged closeness to the TMC dispensation was