Former IPS officer Pratap Dighavkar to join BJP today

Former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Pratap Dighavkar, 62, will join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday in the presence of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and state unit chief of the party Chandrashekhar Bawankule, people familiar with the development said.

Dighavkar said, “I am impressed by the development of infrastructure in the country and also how our GDP has improved considerably. India was called a soft state earlier. Now with surgical strikes, we have emerged stronger, and the earlier image has changed.”

Sources in the BJP said he plans to contest the Dhule Lok Sabha seat where his family has good influence among people.

Dighavkar, who hails from Satana in Nashik district, joined the police as a deputy superintendent of police in 1987 and was nominated in the IPS in 2001. He served as superintendent of police in Pune and Raigad districts, deputy commissioner of police in Mumbai for zone 2, 4 and 9, and traffic police, and additional commissioner of police in Mumbai (South). After his promotion as inspector general, he was posted in Nashik range.

After retirement, Dighavkar worked as a member of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission and that term ended in May.

Earlier, police officer Y C Pawar had joined the BJP.