Hyderabad: Amid growing curiosity over Telangana’s next director general of police (head of police force), sources say the Congress govt has sent a list of seven senior IPS officers to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), to be considered for the top job.
This list of probables includes: CV Anand, Ravi Gupta, Jitender, B Shivadhar Reddy, Shikha Goel, Soumya Mishra and K Sreenivasa Reddy.

Some sources privy to the developments say Hyderabad police commissioner C V Anand and DG (Intelligence) B Shivadhar Reddy are the frontrunners. Special chief secretary, home, Ravi Gupta is the senior most DG-rank officer on the list. He was in-charge DGP from Dec 2023 to July 2024 when the govt replaced him with Jitender.
Anand, meanwhile, is set to retire in June 2028, while Shivadhar’s retirement is in April 2026.
As per Supreme Court guidelines, any DG-rank officer who is selected as HOPF gets a minimum tenure of two years, irrespective of his/her date of superannuation.
Incidentally, since the Congress came to power in Telangana in Dec 2023, it has not appointed any full-time DGP. All those assigned the role were in-charges. M Mahendar Reddy was the last IPS officer in Telangana, who held the full-time post of DGP (HOPF) till Dec 2022. The BRS govt had selected him in 2018 in line with SC guidelines.
Since then, Anjani Kumar (he was appointed by the BRS govt), Ravi Gupta and Jitender who were posted as DGP (coordination) with full additional charge of DGP (HOPF).
The UPSC, after considering various aspects such as performance record, tenure of service completed, seniority, pending service etc — will pick three IPS officers whose names will be sent to the Telangana govt. From this, the state govt can pick the officer of its choice.