Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has shaken up his administrative machinery, changing 30 district magistrates and 40 superintendents of police in one go.
The reshuffle ordered late Saturday night is the biggest carried out by the CM, who assumed charge in March last year, and benefits many provincial civil service and provincial police service officers recently promoted to IAS and IPS rank.
“The reshuffle was carried out with an eye on the next Lok Sabha elections and not to galvanise the administration,” a bureaucrat said. Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party is abuzz with talk about the dwindling political importance of Raghuraj Pratap Singh, who was divested of his ministerial portfolio.