Patna, March 23: Five IPS officers of the state would act as observers in the ensuing Assembly polls in four states and a Union Territory.

Sources in the home department said the Election Commission (EC) has cleared the names of five senior IPS officers of Bihar cadre for their nomination as observers in the forthcoming polls in Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (erstwhile Pondichery). Inspector-general (CID, economic offence wing) Pravin Vashishtha, deputy inspector-general (DIG), CID, Baldev Prasad, DIG (CID, anti-dacoity) K.K. Singh, DIG (Special Branch) Paras Nath and BMP-09 (Jamalpur) commandant Amitabh Kumar Das have been asked to attend the briefing of the EC in New Delhi on March 24.

Earlier, the state government had recommended the names of Vashishtha, Das, DIG-cum-deputy director of Bihar police Academy Paresh Saxena and S. Ravindran (DIG, human resource) for poll observers. “The EC made changes in the list and included some new names,” said a senior IPS officer posted at the state police headquarters.

Additional director-general (headquarters) Rajvardhan Sharma said the EC had sent a list of seven IPS officers for their nomination as observers. “We were asked to send five of them,” he said, adding that Saxena was unwell while Ravindran could not be relieved because he was looking after human rights related affairs.