Municipal commissioner Debashis Som: Change of guard? A Telegraph picture

Municipal commissioner Debashis Som, whose tenure ends on August 31, is being considered for the chief electoral officer (CEO)?s post. But most mayoral council members in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation want his term to be extended by at least a year.

As the Assembly elections are scheduled for next year, both posts are crucial for the Left Front. While the CEO will be responsible for conducting the polls, the municipal commissioner is a key anchor for civic activities.

?The commissioner?s position is crucial because the civic body?s performance in the next few months will be closely scanned during the polls,? a senior official said.

Most mayoral council members think Som, an experienced commissioner who has been holding the post for the past four years, would be of much help in the initial months of the new Left Front board.

?A new mayor and a new commissioner hardly make an ideal combination for running civic affairs, especially when the memory of the much-talked-about tenure of Subrata Mukherjee is still fresh in people?s minds,? said a senior official in the municipal affairs department.

According to officials, two commissioners should be credited for the civic body?s ?present sound status?: Asim Barman and Debashis Som.

Apart from Som?s, two other names ? special secretary in the finance department Debashis Sen and secretary in the mass education department K. John Koshy ? are being considered for the CEO?s post (incumbent Basudeb Banerjee is likely to join the Tea Board as chairman). A decision is expected next week.

The probables for the civic commissioner?s post ? the selection process has been started ? are Alapan Bandyopadhyay and Mira Pande.

Sources, however, said a ?problem of seniority? would arise if Bandyopadhyay, now director of industries, was selected. In the civic body, the project director of the Asian Development Bank-funded Calcutta Environment Improvement Project works under the commissioner. But the present project director, Rajiv Sinha, is senior to Bandyopadhyay.

If Bandyopadhyay is selected, the government may have to appoint a new project director as well.