KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday again attacked the Election Commission of India (ECI) for overnight transfers of top bureaucrats and IPS officers of the poll-bound state hours after the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday announced poll dates.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mamata wrote to Kumar, urging the poll body to avoid such steps and describing the move as ‘unilateral’.
Sharpening her attack on the Commission the outgoing CM wrote on X on Thursday, “The manner in which the Election Commission has singled out and targeted Bengal is not just unprecedented- It is deeply alarming. Even before the formal notification of elections, more than 50 senior officials ... have been summarily and arbitrarily removed.”
She added, “The systematic politicisation of institutions meant to remain impartial is a direct assault on the Constitution.”
Mamata noted that the transfers come at a crucial time when the SIR has claimed over 200 lives and the people are still anxious about their inclusion in the supplementary electoral rolls.
The CM alleged that the ECI's conduct "reflects a clear bias" which continues to put the people of Bengal at risk.
“Meanwhile, senior officers from critical agencies like IB, STF and CID are being selectively removed and dispatched out of the state, pointing to a calculated attempt to cripple Bengal’s administrative machinery,” she wrote.
The Trinamool Congress supremo alleged that the BJP is instrumental behind such move initiated by the national poll panel. “Why is the BJP so desperate? Why this relentless targeting of Bengal and its people? What satisfaction do they derive from forcing citizens, even after 78 years of Independence, to stand in queues and prove their own citizenship?”
The CM stated that the contradictions in the ECI's conduct expose "its complete collapse of credibility."
“It claims that removed officers should not be assigned election duties, yet within hours, the same officers are sent out as election observers. The appointment of the Commissioners of Police of Siliguri and Bidhannagar as observers, without even putting replacements in place, left two vital urban centres effectively headless,” she wrote.
Mamata accused the ECI of playing into power and thereby letting go of accountability altogether.
“This is not incidental, it points to a deliberate design to seize control of West Bengal through coercion and institutional manipulation. What we are witnessing is nothing short of an undeclared emergency and an unpromulgated form of president’s rule driven by political vendetta, not democratic principles. Having failed to win the trust of Bengal’s people, the BJP is now attempting to capture the state through coercion, intimidation, manipulation and the misuse of institutions,” the CM alleged.