Lucknow, Oct. 1: A Dalit IPS officer took over as Uttar Pradesh police chief today, superseding nine officers and triggering criticism that his caste and alleged proximity to the chief minister played a role in his appointment ahead of elections next year.

The heartland state’s home secretary also happens to be a Dalit, while the chief secretary is a Brahmin.

Government spokesperson S.P. Maurya denied any political motive behind the appointment. If the arrangement conformed to the Dalit chief minister’s Brahmin-Dalit caste alliance, he said, it was “incidental and not deliberate”.

Brij Lal, a 1977-batch officer with a career untainted by controversy, is the state’s 50th director-general of police. Considered close to Mayavati, he was special DG (law and order) before he replaced R.K. Tiwari, who retired yesterday.

Lal, the lone Dalit among the 10 special directors-general in the state before his appointment as DGP, was the junior-most in terms of experience.

The 55-year-old earlier headed the state police’s special task force (STF) and anti-terrorist squad (ATS). It is believed that Mayavati, who got some of her party colleagues arrested on charges like murder, rape or corruption during the past four years, took the tough decisions with the help of this officer.

After assuming charge today, Lal said he would take care in addressing public grievances. “To resolve public grievances, a helpline would be set up at the DGP office, besides district and range level by which problems of the people will be solved in minimum time,” a PTI report quoted him as saying.

He also said he would equip the ATS and the STF with more sophisticated gadgets.

Mayavati’s political rivals alleged that the chief was trying to consolidate the Dalit grip on her government’s key department ahead of the 2012 Assembly elections.

Others claimed Lal’s appointment was an example of Mayavati’s Dalit-Brahmin social engineering in the administrative set-up.

While home secretary Kunwar Fatehbahadur, a Dalit, is said to be a trusted Mayavati man, chief secretary Anup Mishra is a Brahmin.

“We never expected fair play from Mayavati,” said Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. “We will complain to the Election Commission.”

The commission had removed Fatehbahadur from his post during the 2009 general election, but he was brought back once the polls were over.

“Mayavati transgressed her moral limit by betraying her caste bias in the administration,” Congress leader and party spokesperson Viren Madan said.

It is believed that the decision to appoint Lal came in the wake of criticism by some Dalit leaders that Mayavati had deviated from the path of Dalit empowerment.

The BJP, which held a Dalit convention here yesterday, accused the chief minister of exploiting Dalits for vote-bank politics.

Ramnath Kovid, a BJP media spokesperson and a Dalit himself, said the BSP government had failed to improve the living standards of Dalits.

Government spokesperson S.P. Maurya dismissed the allegation. To back his argument, the minister cited a recent study on Dalits in Uttar Pradesh by researchers at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

The study, by Lant Pritchett and others, said “consumption patterns of Dalits, signalled their higher social status. Dalits shifted out of low status (but highly caloric intensive) foods like sugar cane juice and roti chatni into diets containing (unbroken) rice, fresh vegetables and spices and increased use of high status foods in social occasions like weddings”.

“When independent studies are saying this,” Maurya said, “why don’t the Opposition leaders keep quiet?”