Within a day of elections being announced in Bengal, the state has a civil and police administration hierarchy different from the machinery Mamata Banerjee led until Sunday night.

An Election Commission order on Monday replaced the state’s director-general of police and Calcutta’s police commissioner, hours after the chief secretary and home secretary had been shown the door.

But the commission may not be done yet. It has asked the state to submit by 6pm on Monday a list of all police station-level officers in areas where pre-poll, poll-day and post-poll violence was reported during the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly elections.

Siddh Nath Gupta, IPS officer from the 1992 batch, is the new Bengal police chief in place of Peeyush Pandey, who is now the director of security, overseeing the protection of the chief minister.

Ajay Kumar Nand, from the 1996 batch, is the Calcutta police commissioner. He replaces Supratim Sarkar who had assumed charge on January 31 and will now be the CID director-general.

Vineet Goyal, who was additional director-general of police in charge of law and order in the state, has had to make way for 1995-batch Ajey Mukund Ranade.

Goyal, a former Calcutta police commissioner who had been appointed to his last post on January 31, will now head the state intelligence branch.

He had barely a week ago headed a team of senior officers from Bengal at a meeting with the Election Commission’s full bench, led by CEC Gyanesh Kumar, in Calcutta.

Sarkar too was at the meeting as the police chief of Calcutta. He has been removed within two days of an attack on Bengal industries and commerce minister Shashi Panja’s home in Girish Park.

“This is the first time in years that virtually the entire top brass of Bengal’s administration has been replaced within 24 hours of the poll panel announcing the election dates,” a senior state home department official said.

“This is also the first time in recent memory that the commission did not send a list of three names for the Bengal government to choose from (for each post).”

This time, the commission simply named the replacements, giving the state no choice.

Its letter to the new chief secretary on the new police postings said: “The officers transferred out shall not be posted in any election-related posts till the completion of elections.”

The first changes had come past Sunday midnight with the removals of chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty and home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena.

New Calcutta police commissioner Ajay Nand hit the streets within hours of his appointment to oversee the police arrangements for Mamata Banerjee’s protest march from College Square to Esplanade, held against the hike in domestic LPG prices and the curbs on commercial LPG supply.

“I must not fail,” Nand said after taking charge. “Each election is a challenge. Elections have occurred in the past, and the Kolkata Police force is adequately prepared. We have our forces. And more forces are on their way.”

Gupta, the new DGP, and Nand are known to be “tough” officers.

Nand had been key to the raising of the Counter Insurgency Force, a specialised wing of the Bengal police that helped combat Maoist guerrillas during the Lalgarh movement of 2010-2011, around the time Mamata first became chief minister.

In September 2011, he was appointed the first commissioner of the Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate. During the 2021 Assembly elections, Nand had headed the violence-prone Barrackpore police commissionerate.

“Ajay Nand and S.N. Gupta crossed paths late in 2015, when Gupta replaced Nand as the Asansol-Durapur commissioner. Both are kadak (tough) officers who specialise in handling law and order,” a senior officer at the state police directorate said.

“Nand was among four senior IPS officers identified to oversee law and order in four border districts following the publication of the (preliminary) ‘final’ voters’ list. He was in charge of Malda district,” the IPS officer said.

The state government had handpicked Gupta and Nand, along with Jawed Shamim, to control the violence in the Darjeeling hills during the 2017 unrest.

Gupta has headed the CID and intelligence branch.

“He has handled the Maoist movement in Lalgarh and the Gorkha uprising in Darjeeling, and has headed the directorate of security, responsible for the chief minister’s security,” the senior officer said.

“All the new police appointees are experienced professionals who know their job.”