KOLKATA: Tightening its grip over West Bengal, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has ordered a major reshuffle at the top administrative posts, just hours after the announcement of Assembly polls in the state on Sunday.
Shortly after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into place, the ECI ordered the replacement of the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and top police officials of the state.
The ECI has replaced CS Nandini Chakraborty with Dushyant Nariala, a 1993 batch IAS officer. Sanghamitra Ghosh has been appointed the new HS, replacing Jagdish Prasad Meena. Ghosh is a 1997-batch IAS officer and Bengal's first female HS.
ECI secretary Surjeet Kumar Mishra directed the changes in a written to Chakraborty late on Sunday night, after the
The poll agency also directed that both Chakraborty and Meena would not be given any portfolio related to polls till the upcoming Assembly elections are over.
The ECI also replaced top police officials, including DGP Peeyush Pandey and Kolkata Commissioner of Police (CP) Supratim Sarkar.
The poll panel has directed the state government to appoint Siddh Nath Gupta as Director General and Inspector General of Police (in-charge), while Natarajan Ramesh Babu has been named Director General of Correctional Services.
It also ordered the posting of Ajay Mukund Ranade as Additional Director General and IGP (Law and Order) and Ajay Kumar Nand as Commissioner of Kolkata Police.
The ECI has directed that the orders be implemented immediately and asked the state government to submit a compliance report by 3 pm on Monday.
The ECI on Sunday afternoon announced the election schedule for Bengal, which will go to the polls in two phases, on April 23 and 29. West Bengal is one of the most highly sensitive states in terms of violence and arsons during the pre- and post-polls period.
Senior bureaucrats in the state remarked that the removal of the CS was unprecedented in the history of West Bengal since the Independence.
According to political observers, the removal of the top-notch bureaucrats hinted at the tightening grip of the national poll body over officers accused of playing partisan roles in the election process.
There has been large scale resentments among senior bureaucrats against the Mamata Banerjee government’s policy to allegedly appoint junior IAS and IPS officers in important posts in the administration.
For instance, the government had appointed Meena as HS, who is seven years junior to Ghosh, who was the secretary in the state women and child welfare development department. Nariala was the secretary in the state disaster management department.