Kerala local body polls: BJP removes ‘IPS’ tag from campaign material of former DGP R. Sreelekha

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) workers in the Sasthamangalam ward of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation were saddled with an unenviable task on Wednesday morning. Following objections raised by Aam Aadmi Party candidate T.S. Rashmi, the party had to remove the ‘IPS’ tag from the posters and campaign materials of their candidate R. Sreelekha, former Director General of Police (DGP).

According to officials in the district administration, a complaint regarding the use of the honorific was received at the office, although an order regarding this is yet to be issued. On Wednesday, in some of the campaign posters in the ward, the IPS part appeared blackened, while in some others, it was seen as ‘IPS (Retired).’

“It was a decision taken by us. I hadn’t seen the mention of ‘IPS’ in the posters until today. It seems the AAP candidate had raised the issue with some of the BJP workers too. So, I thought it would be better to add ‘retired’ to the poster,” Ms. Sreelekha told The Hindu.

Ms. Sreelekha has also been caught in another controversy regarding some remarks she made in a video in her YouTube channel in July 2022. Following reports that the Ernakulam Sessions Court will pronounce its judgment in the actor rape case, in which actor Dileep is an accused, on December 8, 2025, the remarks she made questioning the integrity of the prosecution’s charge against Mr. Dileep are again in the spotlight.

Though Ms. Sreelekha was not involved in the investigation of the case, she was DGP, Prisons, when Mr. Dileep was in judicial custody for nearly 90 days and had admitted that she had met him in jail. The retired officer had claimed that the purported letter written by an accused was possibly fabricated as an afterthought to trap Mr. Dileep.

Ms. Sreelekha had joined the BJP in October 2024, some years after her retirement from service.