Lucknow, Jul 24 (IANS): Short-staffed for very long, the Uttar Pradesh Police will soon be rolling out a major recruitment drive, an official said on Monday.

Applications for eligible candidates would be invited some time next week, and the drive would cover vacancies of over 30,000 police constables and 3,200 sub-inspectors, the official said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's government proposes to recruit more than 1.5 lakh police personnel in the next five years.

In the past too there have been police recruitments, specially in the two regimes of the Samajwadi Party (SP), first when Mulayam Singh Yadav was the Chief Minister and then when his son Akhilesh Yadav was in power.

Both the recruitment drives were tainted with charges of nepotism and favouritism by the political leaders. The employments were subsequently set aside and challenged in the courts.

The present dispensation, a source said, was laying special emphbasis on ensuring that the process was transparent and judicious.