The Bengal government on Tuesday picked Rina Mitra as the state’s principal adviser for internal security.
Mitra is likely to meet chief minister Mamata Banerjee – who is currently in Delhi to attend the Opposition rally being hosted by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – to discuss the new assignment. Banerjee is expected to return to Kolkata on Thursday.
Alumnus of Lady Brabourne College in Kolkata and a student of Calcutta University, Rina Mitra is a 1983-batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre.
She has received the Police Medal in 1999 and the President’s Medal in 2008. Recently retired from the post of special secretary (internal security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Mitra was being widely considered as a likely candidate for the top post of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), given that she has worked close to six years in the central investigating agency, and many more years with the MHA.
Refusing to comment on being overlooked by the selection committee, Mitra called it a ‘closed chapter’ speaking to the media. Calling her new assignment with the West Bengal government a sort of ‘homecoming’, Mitra added that she was looking forward to it.
At a time when standoffs between central agencies like the CBI and the state police are dominating the headlines and getting dragged to the high court and the apex court, Mitra’s induction in the Mamata government is certainly an interesting development, said senior officers of the Central and West Bengal government.
