The slew of transfers of top officers in Bengal – from the top IAS officers to the director-general of police – has led to noisy protests from the ruling Trinamool, but apart from the transfer of chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty the move is not unprecedented.
“A chief secretary has never been transferred in the previous polls,” said a senior official in the Bengal government.
On Sunday night, hours after chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced the poll dates for Bengal, the Election Commission replaced chief secretary Chakravorty and state home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena by Dushyant Nariala and Sanghamitra Ghosh respectively.
“Her [Chakravorty’s] appointment as chief secretary itself was unprecedented,” Jawhar Sircar, retired IAS officer and former Rajya Sabha MP, told The Telegraph Online. “She had superseded several officers. The bias was so, so clear.”
Nariala, a 1993-batch officer, is a year senior to Chakravorty.
It can be argued that the Election Commission has taken more drastic steps in Bengal earlier. For instance, during the last phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the poll panel had curtailed the campaign time for the nine remaining seats, including two in Calcutta, following clashes between BJP and Trinamool supporters after a roadshow by Union home minister Amit Shah.
The commission had also relieved then principal secretary (home and hill affairs) Atri Bhattacharya of his charge. Rajeev Kumar, then ADG (CID) was also transferred and asked to report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the controlling authority of the Indian Police Service.
Kumar, now elected to the Rajya Sabha on a Trinamool ticket, was also removed as Kolkata Police commissioner in the 2016 Assembly polls and as the Bengal DGP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
On Monday, the commission ordered Siddh Nath Gupta to take over as Bengal’s DGP from the incumbent, Peeyush Pandey, and made Ajay Nand the Kolkata police chief by removing Supratim Sarkar.
Rajeev Kumar and Peeyush Pandey are not the only top cops in the country to have been at the receiving end of the Election Commission’s moves. Maharashtra DGP Rashmi Shukla was transferred after complaints from political parties ahead of the Assembly polls there in November 2024.
Before the Lok Sabha polls in 2024, the poll panel had ordered the transfers of the district magistrate of Assam’s Udaigiri and superintendent of police of Bihar’s Bhojpur and the DM and SP of Nawada, Bihar.
During last November’s Assembly election in Bihar, the SP of Patna (Rural) was transferred along with three others after the murder of Dularchand Yadav, a Jan Suraaj party supporter in Mokama.
Ahead of the Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu in 2006, the commission had overruled the objections of the incumbent AIADMK government and removed then Chennai police commissioner R. Nataraj.
Former Rajya Sabha MP and Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the EC had removed Bengal’s first woman chief secretary in an arbitrary manner.
“BJP can change governors or state officials but it cannot change the mind of the people of Bengal. Replace whoever you want to, you won’t be able to replace chief minister Mamata Banerjee,” said Ghosh.
In the Rajya Sabha, Trinamool members walked out protesting against the transfers of the top state administrative officials.
“In the dead of night, the chief secretary, home secretary of Bengal were removed by the Election Commission. EC have all the power to do it. They can (misuse their power). I am wearing a white shirt; but they have the power to say it is not white, it’s a blue shirt. In protest against what the chief election commissioner is doing, we, all India Trinamool Congress, are walking out for the day,” said Derek O’Brien, the party’s leader in the Rajya Sabha.
Trinamool’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Sagarika Ghose, said the timing of the transfers reeked of the EC’s misuse of its power.
“The manner in which the EC transferred the home secretary and chief secretary shows it is misusing its powers to damage the elected government in Bengal,” said Ghose.
In February this year the commission had issued a fresh set of guidelines for transfer of administrative officials and police officers.
The commission stated that district magistrates, returning officers and police inspectors who had served in the same post in any district during the last Assembly election or any by-election cannot be posted in the same district again.
The central poll panel also barred officials against whom it had earlier recommended or imposed disciplinary actions, or who faced allegations of negligence in previous elections, from election duties.
Batting for the Trinamool, Samajwadi party chief and Kanauj MP Akhilesh Yadav said the commission enforces its rules on transfers only in non-BJP ruled states.
“In non-BJP states, the first thing the commission does is remove the DGP and chief secretary,” Akhilesh told reporters in Delhi alleging the transfers were made on the instructions of the BJP.
“Despite numerous complaints in Uttar Pradesh, the DGP was never removed, no action taken. Even officers whose family members were contesting elections were not removed,” Akhilesh claimed.
The commission has made it mandatory for the senior officers to submit a declaration that none of their immediate kin is a candidate in the ongoing polls. In 2021, a superintendent of police was removed from his post and not given any election-related duty since his wife was nominated by the Trinamool.
Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy said he had never seen top officials being transferred on the day the elections were announced.
“The BJP wants to conduct the polls with officials close to the party. They want officials from Delhi to control the election process. I have never seen this,” Roy said.
The leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari said removing the police officers was not enough.
“They should be transferred outside the state,” Suvendu said.
As the day progressed, 30 other West Bengal Civil Services (Executive) officials were also removed. The order was from March 13, before the poll dates were announced, but was released on Monday.
An anguished chief minister, late on Monday night, wrote to Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar complaining about the transfers.
"...I would request the Commission to kindly refrain from adopting such unilateral measures in the future, as they risk diluting the long-standing legacy, credibility, and institutional integrity of the Election Commission of India and also impinge upon the foundational principles of our constitutional framework", Mamata wrote.