Assembly polls: On Day 3 of reshuffles, EC shakes up West Bengal police

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: Continuing its administrative and police shake-up in assembly poll-bound states, Election Commission on Tuesday replaced additional directors general (ADGs) of South Bengal and North Bengal regions, four police commissioners, a deputy commissioner and a dozen SPs in West Bengal. In Kerala, it directed the appointment of an IAS officer and two Kerala Administrative Service (KAS) officers as district election officers (DEOs), and two IPS officers as district police chief and DIG.

The changes in Bengal, including that of chief secretary, home secretary, DGP and Kolkata Police commissioner earlier, prompted CM and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee to say, "Remember, every officer ultimately belongs to the system. Even after the election is declared, an elected govt continues to remain in place and they will ultimately work for us."




"You have changed everyone. What will happen if a disaster strikes now? Chief secretary, commissioners of police and others who had experience and an understanding of the ground situation have been removed. If there is any breakdown in law and order, then the responsibility will have to be borne by EC," she told reporters while announcing TMC's candidate list. EC was operating from the shadows to help BJP, she alleged, saying, "Is there an intention to incite unrest? Is there any plan to trigger something ahead of Eid?"

EC has said that it has carried out the transfers in pursuance of its objective to ensure elections free of intimidation, violence and inducements. It said the shunted officers had been barred from poll-related assignments.

The poll panel on Tuesday also deployed 1,111 central observers for the assembly polls in Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Puducherry as well as bypolls in eight seats. Among them was Bengal's former home secretary J P Meena, who was replaced by Sanghamitra Ghosh on Sunday.

Meena will oversee Tiruchirappalli (West) constituency, which was won by AIADMK in 2011 and in a subsequent bypoll, before DMK secured it in 2016 and 2021, according to an EC note.

These central observers include 557 general observers, 188 police observers and 366 expenditure observers.

While Bengal will have the highest number of general observers (294) - one for each assembly constituency - and 84 police observers, the highest number of expenditure observers (151) are headed for Tamil Nadu, given its history of circulation of unaccounted cash as poll inducement. The observers must reach their respective constituencies by Wednesday.

In Bengal, 17 IPS officers were posted across different police districts and regions. Rajesh Kumar Singh and K Jayaraman - both 1997 batch IPS officers - were posted as ADGs of North Bengal and South Bengal regions, respectively. Similarly, EC ordered that Akhilesh Kumar Chaturvedi be posted as commissioner of police (CP) of Howrah; Amit Kumar Singh as CP of Barrackpore; Pranav Kumar as CP of Asansol-Durgapur, and Sunil Kumar Yadav as CP of Chandannagar.

At the district or division level, new SPs were posted in Barasat, Coochbehar, Birbhum, Islampur, Hooghly Rural, Diamond Harbour, Murshidabad, Basirhat, Malda, Purba Medinipur, Jangipur and Pashchim Medinipur.

IPS officer Yeilwad Shrikant Jagannathrao was appointed as deputy commissioner, central division, Kolkata, replacing Indira Mukherjee, who had drawn EC's ire for repeated protests by BLOs and others at the Bengal's CEO office.

TOI had reported on Tuesday that more transfers at the district level in Bengal were in the offing.

In Kerala, bureaucratic changes were made in Kozhikode, Thrissur, Alappuzha and Kannur districts. T Narayanan was posted as district police chief, Kozhikode; Thomson Jose as DIG range, Thrissur; Inbasekhar as district collector-cum-DEO, Alappuzha; Vandana S as returning officer, Irikkur; and Sachin Krishna as returning officer, Dharmadam.
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