Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 22 : The race for the post of the next State Police chief - director general of police (law and order) of Kerala has begun with incumbent Anil Kant, presently on an extension, is to superannuate on June 30. According to the present rules as prescribed by the Centre, the state government has to submit a list of eight officials, which will be pruned to three and sent back to the state government, which can select anyone from the list of three. The front runners include Nitin Agarwal, Padmakumar, Sheikh Darwais Sahib, Sanjeev Kumar Pat Joshi, T.K. Vinod Kumar, Yogesh Gupta and two others. Among these Nitin Agarwal, presently ADG CRPF is unlikely to return to the state and hence may not opt for it. The state government has to send a detailed profile of the officials and they have asked the eight officials to submit their profiles. /IANS