3 min readAhmedabadJun 22, 2026 07:10 PM IST
First published on: Jun 11, 2026 at 02:40 AM IST
In the past 13 years, Gujarat saw at least five IPS officers as in-charge Director Generals of Police – the last one being KLN Rao who held charge for the last six months before 1993-batch officer G S Malik was appointed Head of the Police Force (HoPF). After the then DGP Amitabh Pathak’s sudden demise in 2013, Pramod Kumar was appointed in-charge DGP. The same year, P C Thakur was appointed full-time DGP but was ‘shunted out’ to the Centre in 2016.
Thakur was succeeded by a string of in-charge DGPs. First among them was P P Pandey in 2016, who resigned after a year following a Supreme Court petition challenging his appointment. Geetha Johri was appointed as interim HOPF, till December 2017, the first woman to hold the top post and was succeeded by Pramod Kumar, who was appointed as in-charge DGP for the second time before his superannuation in March 2018. After three successive in-charge DGPs, the state police got three full-time chiefs in Shivanand Jha from 2018 to 2020, Ashish Bhatia from 2020 to 2023 and Vikas Sahay from 2023 to 2025. All three of these officers received extensions to their tenures.
‘Biggest achievement’
Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Friday addressed a convention of Gujarat BJP in Gandhinagar to mark completion of 12 years of BJP rule in India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In his speech, Yadav said that if PM Modi’s tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister is added to his tenure as Prime Minister then his tenure as an elected leader spans 1/4th Century, which he said is the “biggest achievement in the world”. “I see the entire world. Nobody gets people’s mandate for more than one or two times. PM Modi has completed 12 years as Prime Minister. But if his tenure in Gujarat (as Chief Minister) is clubbed, then 25 years of rule and that too with people’s mandate, it is the biggest achievement in the world,” the union minister said.
“1/4th of the century…A century is considered a very long period. But 25 years of it, in the form of a democracy, in the form of a leader… the fame that he (Modi) has achieved…it has been achieved with his hardwork, resolve, firm will power and with people’s confidence in him,” Yadav said.
Mission Admission
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel will launch the 24th edition of the Kanya Kelavani and Shala Praveshotsav scheduled from June 23-25 from B N High School in Vadnagar. This school is where the then Chief Minister as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi received school education in his hometown of Vadnagar. Also, the enrollment drive was launched by the then CM and persent Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2003. The CM will give admission to 389 students from Balvatika to Class XI and anganwadi in Vadnagar. With the focus this year on re-enrollment of nearly 6.4 lakh students who dropped out in 2025-26 during the 24th year of the three-day school campaign, a total of 28.58 lakh children will be given school admission across 38,400 schools in Gujarat. Around 465 dignitaries including CM Patel and Deputy CM Harsh Sanghavi, Cabinet Ministers, IAS, IPS, IFS officers and Secretariat officials will participate in the drive.
After three successive in-charge DGPs, the state police got three full-time chiefs in Shivanand Jha from 2018 to 2020, Ashish Bhatia from 2020 to 2023 and Vikas Sahay from 2023 to 2025. 
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