The state government replaced the police commissioners of three key commissionerates adjoining Calcutta — Bidhannagar, Howrah, and Barrackpore — on Friday.

Howrah police commissioner Praveen Kumar Tripathi was shifted to Barrackpore.

Murlidhar Sharma was transferred from Barrackpore to Bidhannagar, while Akash Magharia has been designated as the new commissioner of Howrah Police.

Akash Magharia

Metro takes a closer look at the three commissionerates and into the challenges they pose in an election year.

Barrackpore

Spread over 330sqkm north of Calcutta and marked by dense urban and industrial pockets, the task of the Barrackpore police commissioner is possibly the most daunting.

The Trinamool Congress, which holds a majority of the dozen Assembly seats under the commissionerate’s jurisdiction, is riddled with factionalism and internal feuds.

The lure of money from syndicates and the power that follows poses a challenge for the police to maintain law and order in this subdivision of North 24-Parganas.

Traditionally, this part has remained politically volatile. Recently, there have been intermittent clashes between Trinamool and the BJP, whose poster boy is former Trinamool leader Arjun Singh.

Praveen Kumar Tripathi is not new to this region.

Almost 17 summers back, Tripathi was the additional superintendent of police. In 2009, on the day of the Lok Sabha polls, the young IPS officer had slapped Sambhu Chatterjee, a prominent Left leader and a close aide to CPM strongman and MP Tarit Topadar, in Kanchrapara.

“The Left is now a faint shadow of its past in this subdivision. The new police commissioner’s challenge would be tackling the feuds for territorial dominance across parts of Bijpur, Bhatpara, Jagaddal, Naihati, Barrackpore, and Khardah,” a senior Trinamool leader of the region said.

A large fraction of the subdivision has a Hindi-speaking population of up to 52 per cent, predominantly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Several factories remain closed. The task of curbing crime and lawlessness has been a long-standing challenge.

The battle over which factions obtain the contract to provide labourers in jute mills and who dominates the sale of industrial scrap metals has culminated in several political killings, notably the assassination of BJP youth leader Manish Shukla in Titagarh in 2020 and the murder of Anupam Dutta, a Trinamool councillor from Panihati Municipality, in 2022.

“This subdivision has been the scene of an alleged murder attempt and extortion linked to Bihar gangster Subodh Singh, in addition to an NIA (National Investigation Agency) inquiry regarding a bombing that took place outside a former MP’s home, and a former IPS officer (R.K. Handa) who ran in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but did not secure the seat,” said a senior officer from the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate.

Howrah

Crumbling old infrastructure and narrow roads: the Howrah police commissionerate’s challenge includes managing marked socio-economic disparity and ensuring security in a densely populated city.

Between 2021 and 2022, the commissionerate recorded over 60 cases of communal conflicts, arguably the highest among the six police commissionerates in Bengal.

The volatility saw a change of guard with Praveen Kumar Tripathi taking charge as the police commissioner in 2022.

Home to the state secretariat Nabanna, the police commissioners of Howrah have, over the years, struggled to curb crime, some of which is political factionalism and also fight for control of money from syndicates, police sources said.

When Akash Magharia takes charge as the new police commissioner, the challenge will be to rein in the syndicates and stop the easy flow of illegal arms from adjoining Jharkhand, a local leader said.

Several Trinamool functionaries said retaining the seven Assembly seats of the Howrah Lok Sabha constituency was a challenge for the party, given the increasing influence of the saffron brigade among the large Hindi-speaking population.

“The harassment because of the SIR will hopefully counter other issues in Howrah,” said a senior Trinamool leader.

However, here the BJP is not the Trinamool’s sole rival. The Congress and the Left have a traditional base here.

The murder of Debabrata Mondal, a Trinamool panchayat pradhan, in Bally in November 2025 was allegedly because of a syndicate spat. It remains a sore point for the party leadership.

A lot will depend on how the police commissionerate manages to pull off the elections.

Bidhannagar

Within hours of the Lionel Messi fiasco at the Salt Lake Stadium in December, top Trinamool Congress leaders were unanimous about one thing — that Bidhannagar police could have handled the event better. A change of guard seemed imminent.

The state government appointed Murlidhar Sharma as the new police commissioner on Friday. He was part of the four-member SIT team assigned to investigate the vandalism and violence at the Salt Lake Stadium.

With areas like Salt Lake, New Town, Rajarhat, Lake Town and the airport under its jurisdiction, Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate’s challenge has been managing predominantly urban areas and rural pockets between Sector V and large stretches of panchayat areas.

Polls in this part of Calcutta’s suburbs have witnessed violence over the years, and the last Assembly election was no different. The BJP and Trinamool supporters clashed.

Both the BJP and the Trinamool leadership claim they have recovered their ground since the last Assembly polls.

“Bidhannagar is a prestige seat for us, not only for the growing number of supporters but for the fact that the party’s state office is located here,” a senior BJP leader said.

“The manner in which Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate conducts the polls will be crucial for the state administration, particularly after the face loss over the Messi fiasco,” a senior official of the home department said.

Real estate is booming in this part of the city. Fights over syndicate spoils are a menace, too.