If Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu wants to follow the conventional method of following the seniority in the appointment of the director general of police (DGP), then senior IPS officer Madireddy Pratap is going to be the new DGP of the state.
He will succeed the outgoing DGP Dwaraka Tirumala Rao, who is set to retire this month end on attaining the age of superannuation.
Unlike in the case of IAS officers, there is no possibility of seeking extension of service for the IPS officers.
Naidu’s predecessor and YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy ignored the convention of appointing the seniormost IPS officer as the DGP.
He ignored several seniors and appointed K V Rajendranath Reddy as the DGP during his tenure.
But historically, Naidu has always adhered to protocol and seniority in appointing key officials in the police department.
As per the seniority list, the frontrunner to succeed Dwaraka Tirumala Rao is 1991-batch officer Madireddy Pratap, followed by Harish Kumar Gupta, PSR Anjaneyulu, KVRN Rajendranath Reddy, Nalin Prabhat, Mahesh Dikshit, Amit Garg, PV Sunil Kumar, and Kumar Vishwajit.
So, going by the convention, Naidu will have to appoint Madireddy Pratap as the DGP.
At present, he is the Director General of the Fire Services Department and he had won the appreciation from Naidu for his pro-active measures during the recent Budameru flood disaster.
In fact, Madireddy Pratap was one of the hot favourite officers of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.
A highly educated officer, he was a classmate of Google CEO Sundar Pichai and had pursued his higher education abroad.
Though Pratap is an IPS officer, YSR appointed him as the CEO of AP Investment Promotion Board.
He played a crucial role in bringing Google’s Hyderabad campus and facilitating major investments like Brandix and Sri City to Andhra Pradesh.
He was also instrumental in introducing the 108 ambulance services in the undivided Andhra Pradesh.
After Jagan came to power, he appointed him as the APSRTC Corporation vice-chairman and managing director and also the newly-formed Public Transport Department.
But for some strange reasons, Pratap was transferred overnight and posted as additional director general of AP Special Police Battalion within a couple of months.
Apparently, Jagan was not happy with the way Pratap was behaving independently, caring a damn for the CMO and also the transport minister.
The decisions taken by Pratap like sacking of over 7,000 outsourced employees and purchase of electric vehicles and double-decker buses etc without consulting the CMO are learnt to have angered Jagan who shifted him from the post.
What irritated Jagan more was Pratap’s press conference soon after his transfer, where he expressed his disappointment. He tried to give an impression that he was shifted despite his proximity with the YSR family.
He told the reporters that he was transferred a day after Jagan’s mother Vijayamma sent him a birthday cake.
He even said while several officers in the YSR government were questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), he was not because of his integrity.
Within three days of being shifted to Andhra Pradesh Special Police Battalion, Pratap was transferred again and was asked to report to the General Administration Department led by IAS officer Praveen Prakash.
He was also served with a show-cause notice for addressing a press conference in clear violation of IAS (Conduct) Rules.
Subsequently, he was not given any posting for two and a half years till the end of the Jagan government. After Naidu came to power, Pratap was appointed as DG of Fire Services.