The Election Commission of India (ECI) has transferred four top Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in West Bengal, including state's Director General of Police (DGP) Peeyush Pandey and Kolkata commissioner of police Supratim Sarkar, sparking a heated debate in the eastern state ahead of the assembly polls.
The move comes a day after ECI announced the poll schedule for West Bengal, which will go to polls in two phases on April 23 and April 29, and hours after the commission ordered the removal of the state’s two top bureaucrats, chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty and home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena.
ECI said its directions are to be implemented with immediate effect. “...the officers transferred out shall not be posted in any election-related posts till the completion of elections,” the orders, signed by commission secretary Sujeet Kr Mishra, said.
The poll panel on Sunday night appointed 1993-batch IAS officer Dushyant Nariala as the West Bengal’s chief secretary, and 1997-batch IAS officer Sanghamitra Ghosh as home secretary.
ECI also replaced ADG (law and order) Vineet Goyal with 1995-batch IPS officer Ajay Mukund Ranade and appointed Natarajan Ramesh Babu, a 1991-batch IPS officer, as director general (correctional services), in place of Siddh Nath Gupta, who held that position before the transfers.
“The Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, in his press conference on Sunday, had assured that elections in West Bengal would be violence-free and peaceful. In pursuance of this objective, ECI has appointed and transferred senior police officials in the state, including the DGP and CP of Kolkata police,” a senior ECI official said.
ECI transferring top IAS/IPS officers of West Bengal as individual cases ahead of the polls has several precedents, but this is perhaps the first time the poll panel has transferred the chief secretary, home secretary, DGP, Kolkata CP and the ADG (law and order) at one go and forbidding them to take part in poll activities.
