In a sweep, the Election Commission appointed new district magistrates in 13 districts across Bengal.
Smita Pandey, an IAS officer of 2005-batch, will be the new municipal commissioner in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. She replaces Anshul Gupta.
For South Kolkata, the commission has appointed Randhir Kumar as the district electoral officer to oversee the poll process,
The key constituency of Bhowanipore from where chief minister Mamata Banerjee will contest against the leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari will be monitored by Kumar.
This is the fifth such order issued by the commission since the poll schedule was announced last Sunday.
In the six north Bengal districts of Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, North Dinajpur, Malda Darjeeling and Alipurduars, Jitin Yadav, Sandeep Ghosh, Vivek Kumar and Rajanvir Singh Kapur, Harishankar Panicker and T. Balasubramaniam have been appointed as the new district magistrates.
In the two neighbouring districts of Murshidabad and Nadia R. Arjun and Srikant Palli will be the new district magistrates.
Shilpa Gourisaria will be the new DM of North 24-Parganas and Abhishek Kumar Tiwary of South 24-Parganas. Another woman IAS officer Sweta Agarwal will be the DM of East Burdwan.
Pictures: Sourced by our correspondent.
The commission also ordered the appointment of five more IPS officers all deputy inspector general (DIG) rank to key areas ahead of next month’s elections.
The commission, in a letter to the chief secretary Dushyant Nariala directed Rathod Amitkumar Bharat be posted as DIG Raiganj range and Anjali Singh as DIG Jalpaiguri range, both in north Bengal where the BJP emerged strong in the last few elections.
In the volatile Murshidabad range Ajeet Singh Yadav has been posted. He was stationed as a superintendent of police in the department of economic offences.
For the crucial Presidency range which covers entire South 24-Parganas, parts of North 24-Parganas and Howrah rural areas, the commission has posted Kankar Prasad Barui as the DIG, while Srihari Pandey will be the new DIG Burdwan range. The areas under these two ranges are Trinamool strongholds.
Pictures: Sourced by our correspondent.
The commission gave the customary instructions of immediate posting of these officers along with a compliance report.
Earlier the commission had transferred chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty, home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena, followed by Bengal’s director general of police Peeyush Pandey and Kolkata’s police chief Supratim Sarkar on Monday. Nineteen other IPS officers were transferred in the districts on Tuesday.
The commission has made it clear that none of the officers removed from their positions will be involved in any election-related duty.
While announcing the list of candidates for the Trinamool at her 30B Harish Chatterjee street resident chief minister Mamata Banerjee had accused the commission of “playing games.” She also called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “selectively targeting” Bengal’s executive.
“Now, they have taken away all the power from us. But one thing they cannot take away is manpower,” Mamata had said. “
“Now, they have taken away all the power from us. But one thing they cannot take away is manpower,” she said. “They have got someone called Tonsil, his nickname. He is deciding who will be the chief secretary.”
Mamata warned the commission and the BJP that her government was still in power.
“Remember, all the officers are our officer,” the chief minister had said.
“Remember, all the officers are our officers. Even though elections have been announced, the government is still ours... we remain,” Mamata added. “We will win more than 226 seats in 2026. Boycott BJP, vote for Trinamool, vote for Bengal.”
“Honourable Prime Minister, if you have respect for democracy, if you have confidence, then why are you repeatedly assaulting Bengal?” she said. “Remember, Bengal will also retaliate. Not even the moon, sun or the planets will forgive them.”
Bengal will go to polls in two phases on April 23 and April 29, and the results will be declared on May 4.