The Election Commission on Friday directed the newly appointed district magistrates to get their predecessors to vacate their official bungalows so they can put up there.

The directive, sources said, was a signal from the Gyanesh Kumar-led poll panel that it would not tolerate any interference in the election process by the 11 DMs it had removed recently.

“During the last few elections, DMs removed by the commission did not vacate their bungalows, forcing the new DMs to work from circuit houses,” a poll panel official said.

“This sent the wrong message to the officials conducting the elections. They knew that the previous DM would come back after the election; so they were hesitant to follow the instructions of the new DMs.”

The commission’s latest instruction came during a videoconference attended by poll panel officials, chief electoral officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal and all the district election officers or DEOs (district magistrates).

The Election Commission had replaced 11 district magistrates on Wednesday without consulting the Bengal government. It has sent five of them to Tamil Nadu as poll observers.

The rejig of senior bureaucrats and police officers reached Calcutta High Court on Friday, with the state government challenging the poll panel’s authority to send them to other states.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Sujoy Paul is likely to hear the matter on Monday.

While seeking permission to file the petition, Trinamool MP and senior counsel Kalyan Banerjee said: “For conducting a fair election, the commission can transfer the officers during the model code of conduct (period). But it has no right to transfer the officers to other states.”

He added: “In this situation, serious law-and-order problems can arise.”

To Kalyan’s request for urgent hearing, Justice Paul assured him the matter would be heard on Monday.

A senior official saidthe poll panel had replaced several DMs during the 2021 Assembly polls and the 2024 general election following allegations they were playing a “partisan” role.

But these DMs continued to occupy their bungalows, allegedly on instructions from the state government’s top brass.

“Such an arrangement sent out a clear message that the ruling dispensation would transfer the newly appointed DMs after the elections. Using this ruse, the predecessors continued to instruct the officials conducting the elections,” a commission source said.

“The Election Commission is serious about preventing this kind of interference this time.”

The poll panel has since the beginning of the election process taken a tough stance on state officials seen as close to the ruling party.

Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had warned senior officials, including then chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty and then DGP Piyush Pandey, not to interfere in the election process and to allow the district officials to work in keeping with the poll panel’s directives.

“The commission felt that the SIR could not be completed on time only because of interference from some top bureaucrats,” a source said.

This time, the commission has set six goals for the DEOs, including the prevention of violence and voter intimidation through the proper deployment of central forces.

“The DEOs have also been asked to try and make the elections free from any political influence and take care of bogus or proxy voting, booth jamming and intimidation in the catchment areas of the booths on polling day,” an official said.

Additional reporting by Tapas Ghosh