The race to succeed Intelligence Bureau Director K P Singh, who retires at the end of August 2004, has begun in right earnest.
Though four officers of the 1968 batch are eligible to head the country's premier internal intelligence agency, the candidates in the lead are Ajit Doval, currently number 2 in the bureau, and E S L Narsimhan.
"Normally the seniormost officer takes over as director," a senior IB officer told rediff.com "If we go by this logic, then Ajit Doval should be the natural choice."
Doval has been accompanying Singh to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's daily briefing session. The only civilian officer to win a Kirti Chakra for planning Operation Black Thunder to flush out terrorists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1988 without engaging them in a prolonged gun battle, Doval also headed the operations cell of the organisation when M K Narayanan, now the prime minister's special adviser on internal security, was the IB chief.
Doval was part of the team that went to Kandahar in December 1999 to negotiate the release of the hijacked Indian Airlines Flight IC-814. The only problem is that he retires in January next year.
Those backing Narsimhan insist the odds are clearly in his favour. Narsimhan, they say, also enjoys Narayanan's confidence. Narsimhan was his staff officer when Narayanan headed the IB.
Narsimhan currently runs the counter-intelligence set-up as one of the secretaries in the IB. Besides, he has more than a year of service left. "He is a bright officer capable of holding the responsibilities entrusted to him," a former IB officer said. "His long stint in the organisation and experience in handling challenges are remarkable."
The other two in the race are secretary-level officers N C Padhi and Sudhir Kumar. According to some IB officers, K M Singh, another senior officer, is also jostling for the coveted post.
Who eventually makes it to the top will probably hinge on Narayanan.
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