Bengaluru: The recent transfers affected in the Police Department has not gone down well with a section of IPS officers in the State and they are now blaming “Super Home Minister” Kempaiah (in pic) for the mess.

Kempaiah, a retired Police officer, is the advisor to the Home Minister and Chief Minister Siddharamaiah holds the Home portfolio. The State Government has affected a series of transfers in the last couple of days where Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood was shunted out only seven months after he assumed office. Likewise, A.M. Prasad, who was transferred from the Intelligence Wing following the suicide of Dy.SP Ganapathy (who named Prasad’s harassment as one of the reasons for his suicide), has been posted back to Intelligence Department.

The IPS officers’ lobby is upset the way the transfers are being done in an arbitrary manner and without any forethought. Hemanth Nimbalkar, who was known as a tough Cop in Bengaluru, was transferred from the post of Additional Commissioner and has not been given a posting as yet.

Senior IPS officers have expressed concern on how Kempaiah has become an extra-Constitutional authority and his way of functioning is interfering in the Police Department. According to some IPS officers, Kempaiah has already prepared a list of officers to be transferred across the State and a major surgery will be performed to the Department.

The officers have been told by their sources in the Government that a big list of transfers will be released by the Government in one or two days where officers favourable to candidates are given plum posts in the election year. And the way the transfers are being done, it looks like that the Siddharamaiah Government is already in the poll mode and is ensuring that favourable official machinery is in place before the election dates are declared.