Kanpur Police Commissioner Aseem Arun met BJP Rajya Sabha MP Brijlal last night.
Lucknow:
A picture of a senior IPS officer from Uttar Pradesh, who is the police commissioner of Kanpur, one of the state’s largest cities, meeting with a BJP Rajya Sabha MP and retired Director General of Police has gone viral on social media, indicating that the important campaigning for. The state elections went virtual due to the Covid induced restrictions.
Minutes after the Election Commission ended the announcement of the poll schedule on Saturday, 1994-batch UP cadre IPS officer Asim Kumar Arun, who was appointed as Kanpur Police Commissioner in March 2021, announced on Facebook that he had joined the police. Voluntary retirement sought. He wanted to “serve the nation and society in a different way”. In the same post, Mr. Arun thanked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath “for finding him worthy of membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party”.
The sudden announcement of a respected police officer who had won several medals during his service and considered an honest officer raised eyebrows. Last night, Brijlal, who served as the UP police chief between 2011-12 and is now a BJP Rajya Sabha MP, tweeted a picture of his meeting with Mr. Arun, in which laddoos were offered to the police officer.
Police websites still list Mr. Arun as Kanpur Police Commissioner. He still had at least 8 years of service left, but sources say he has asked the government to expedite his voluntary retirement application.
Asim Arun, whose father was also a distinguished police officer who served as DGP in UP, is from the state’s Kannauj district and there is speculation that he will contest the assembly elections from a seat in the district.
Before taking over as Kanpur’s first police commissioner last year, Mr Arun held important positions such as chief of emergency helpline 112 and chief of the anti-terrorist squad.
Voting for 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will begin in seven phases from February 10. The polling dates will be February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and March 7. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.
The fight for Uttar Pradesh will be multi-cornered, where the BJP is pushing for a second term in power. The main challenge of the BJP will be the Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav.
Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress are also in the running, with the Congress expected to divide the Samajwadi Party’s Muslim voter base.
In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP scored a landslide victory by winning 312 assembly seats alone and 325 with allies. The party secured 39.67 per cent vote share in the elections to the 403-member assembly. Samajwadi Party (SP) won 47 seats, BSP 19 seats, while Congress could win only seven seats.
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