The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday placed on hold the transfer orders of five IPS officers issued on Wednesday night for their assignment as poll observers in other states.
There was no change in the orders of the remaining 10 officers who were also assigned similar duties in other states.
The transfer orders for all five individuals, which include CP Bidhannagar Murlidhar Sharma, CP Siliguri Syed Waquar Raza, DIG IB Akash Magharia, IG Special Task Force Praveen Tripathi, and special superintendent IB Amandeep, were put on hold on Thursday.
Late on Wednesday, the ECI had sent 15 IPS officers of the Bengal cadre for
polling duty in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and
Nagaland.
On Thursday morning, the orders of the two commissioners, CP Bidhannagar and CP Siliguri, were asked not to be executed. The officers were asked to stay.
A few hours later, the other three officers — Tripathi, Magharia and Amandeep — were informed that their orders had also been “put on hold”.
Sources said by the time the order came late in the afternoon, two of the officers had already reached their destination, and another was about to board a flight from the Calcutta airport.
Sources in the state home department said that the three officers who were exempted from going to other states as poll observers were held back because several senior officers had already been transferred, who would not be allowed to hold election-related posts. Several others had been sent outside Bengal for poll duties. The state now needs senior officers to run the show.
All three officers who were held back were in key posts in the state administration, but they had been removed by the ECI earlier this week.
Amandeep was posted as SP Birbhum, while Praveen Tripathi was CP Barrackpore, and Akash Magharia was posted as CP Howrah.
After their removal by the ECI, the state had reinstated them in the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Task Force — units not directly connected to the election process.
However, hours after their reinstatement, the ECI issued orders to send them to another state for election duty. A day later, those orders were put on hold.
“It is ironic that the ECI had first removed them to non-election posts and then was sending them to do duty as election officers in other states. Which means they were selected for doing election duty anyway, which is contradictory to their own decision to remove them from election duties,” said a senior bureaucrat.
Sources said the majority of the other 10 IPS officers had joined their new posts as election observers in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Nagaland on Thursday.
Till Wednesday, the ECI had transferred 33 IPS officers of the Bengal cadre. However, with transfers of CP Bidhannagar and CP Siliguri put on hold, the number of transfers on Thursday was 31.
State reinstates five
In an order issued on Thursday evening, the state reinstated five IPS officers removed by the ECI.
Bholanath Pandey, who was earlier posted as DIG, Jalpaiguri Range before the removal by the ECI, was reinstated as DIG, IB.
Alok Rajoria, who was earlier posted as DIG, Burdwan Range, has been posted as
DIG, IB.
Sudheer Kumar Neelakantam, who was earlier posted as DIG, Murshidabad Range, has now been reinstated as DIG, STF.
Nimbalkar Santosh Uttamrao, earlier posted as DIG, Raiganj Range, has been posted as DIG, STF.
Bhaskar Mukherjee, who was DIG, Presidency Range, has been posted as DIG, STF.