Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has embarked on an unprecedented campaign to put the stamp of the State Police on New York City, rerouting troopers to city airports and toll plazas from upstate areas that rely on them and bewildering some of the officials charged with carrying out his orders.

The deployment of close to 200 troopers has frustrated some police leaders and helped drive out a superintendent, who quit last year as he resisted the governor’s efforts to direct more troopers into the city and to influence some promotions, according to four current or former law enforcement officials with intimate knowledge of State Police operations.

The plan by Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is seen by some within the State Police as having more to do with expanding his political footprint than with addressing the needs of law enforcement. Chief among them is the agency’s responsibility to patrol and investigate crime across tens of thousands of square miles, from the shores of Lake Erie to the borders with Vermont and Canada.

The high-profile mandates — and the pushback — have thrust a police force of 4,900 into the position of defending a buildup in places already patrolled by nearly half a dozen law enforcement agencies and where crime is at historical lows. It has also highlighted what the four officials described as Mr. Cuomo’s penchant for micromanaging police operations, like once telling a troop commander where to place traffic cones in a Buffalo snowstorm and ordering investigators to target low-level drug sales in convenience stores.