FIRs are to be registered against four state government officials and a casual data entry operator for incorrect entries made to the electoral rolls just before the SIR began in Bengal, heralding another possible clash between the poll panel and Nabanna.
On August 5 last year, the Election Commission had asked then Bengal chief secretary Manoj Pant to suspend the four officials and lodge FIRs against them and the data operator.
The state government initially refused. After Pant was summoned to Delhi and given a week to carry out the order, the state suspended the four officials and removed the data operator from electoral duty. No FIR was registered.
On Friday, the commission asked Bengal chief electoral officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal to instruct the district election officers — the district magistrates of South 24-Parganas and East Midnapore — to have FIRs registered against the five.
The officials are Debottam Dutta Chowdhury and Tathagata Mondal, former electoral registration officer (ERO) and assistant ERO for Baruipur Purba in South 24-Parganas; and Biplab Sarkar and Sudipta Das, former ERO and AERO for Moyna in East Midnapore. The casual data entry operator is Surojit Halder.
EROs are appointed from among officials with the rank of block development officer or above, and AEROs from among officials below the rank of block development officer.
“The Commission had directed that the aforesaid officials... to be suspended and that the FIRs be lodged against all of them for their failure to perform statutory duties and for violating data security policies by sharing login credentials with unauthorised persons,” the commission’s letter of Friday says.
The letter adds: “It is observed that while the State Government has effected the suspension of these officials on 20.08.2025, the direction regarding the registration of FIRs remains non-compliant till date.
“In view of the above, you are hereby directed to instruct the concerned District Election Officers to ensure immediate registration of FIRs against aforesaid officials under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, along with relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.”
Sources said this could set up a fresh conflict between Nabanna and the poll panel, since chief minister Mamata Banerjee had publicly announced that her government would not lodge any FIR against the officials as the mistakes had been unintentional.
“But the problem is that the district magistrates are in deputation with the poll commission these days since the SIR is under way,” a bureaucrat said.
“It will be difficult for them to ignore the commission’s directive at this moment. When the instruction was first sent last August, the state government officials were not in deputation with the commission.”
According to the state CEO’s office, more than 100 fictitious names had been inserted into the rolls for Moyna and Baruipur Purba Assembly segments.
The EROs and AEROs for these two segments had admitted their mistake after they were summoned to the CEO’s office in Calcutta.
The commission had issued the August 2025 order to suspend and lodge FIRs against them only after receiving a detailed report containing the admissions by these officials.
Multiple state government officials said the commission’s latest instruction had sent out a message to the state government officials involved in the SIR process, while telling Trinamool that the poll panel was not perturbed by its attacks.