Bengaluru, Jan 23 (IANS) Poll-bound Karnataka's State Election Commission (SEC) on Tuesday objected to the abrupt transfer of Rohini Sindhuri Dasari, an IAS officer of the 2009 batch, by the state's Congress government.
"State Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar, in a letter to Chief Secretary K. Ratna Prabha, questioned the transfer of Dasari ahead of the state polls and why the SEC wasn't informed," an official from the Chief Minister's Office told IANS here.
Six other Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, including three women officials, were also transferred on Monday.
The transfers were merely "administrative", stated the official.
Dasari, 33, was the Deputy Commissioner of Hassan district, about 190 km to the west of Bengaluru. She was transferred on Monday as Managing Director of Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (KSIIDC) in Bengaluru.
H.D. Deve Gowda, the Lok Sabha lawmaker from Hassan, a strong belt of the dominant Vokkaliga community to which the ex-Prime Minister belongs, criticised the Congress government's move to transfer Dasari.
"I've never seen a state government like this anywhere that transfers honest officers," Gowda told reporters.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit President B.S. Yeddyurappa said: "... the transfer of Dasari is unceremonious. Is there no place for honest and upright officers in this government?"
Responding to the opposition criticism, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had defended the transfers saying it was a "routine administrative matter".
"The state can make the transfers as the poll dates or the code of conduct has not been given out yet by the poll panel," he said.
