The West Bengal government finally woke up from slumber on Thursday and sent the list of nine IAS and eight IPS officers of its choice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the roles of central observers. The Bengal govt’s action came a day after the ECI named 15 IAS and 10 IPS officers from the state to act as central election observers in the five poll-bound states—West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry.
Sources confided that the Mamata Banerjee govt has requested the ECI to include these officers in the list of central observers as replacements for the ones named by the poll panel.
This move comes a day after the list sent by the ECI named even Bengal’s Home Secretary Jagdeesh Prasad Meena and Howrah Police Commissioner Praveen Kumar Tripathy, among others, as central observers.
Bengal DGP Rajeev Kumar is learnt to have communicated to Chief Electoral Officer of the state Manoj Kumar Agarwal that Bharat Lal Meena and Rishikesh Meena, two IPS officers, are unable to join due to medical reasons.
All officers named by the EC had been asked to attend a mandatory two-day orientation programme scheduled for February 5 and 6 in New Delhi at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, in the presence of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Interestingly, West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal dashed off a letter on January 27 warning officers of strong disciplinary action against any of them who skip the training programme in Delhi.
If sources in the ECI are to be believed, the poll body had repeatedly asked the West Bengal government to recommend names of IAS and IPS officers from the state for appointment as poll observers in other states, but the government is alleged to have sat on it.
This is not all; the Commission is said to have written at least five letters to the state secretariat, Nabanna, reminding it to send a list of officers since November, failing which the Commission sent a letter directly to Agarwal.
This is not the lone action on the part of the Commission to put the Bengal govt in a fix. Just on Tuesday, the poll body asked the state government to revoke the transfer of three IAS officers.
The Bengal govt also responded to the ECI’s directive to cancel the transfer of these three officers, saying they have been assigned less critical roles. The three officers who were transferred were Ashwini Kumar Yadav, Randhir Kumar, and Smita Pandey.
A senior official at the Bengal secretariat had remarked the Mamata government was contemplating sending a reply to the Commission protesting against this move, but what has come out eventually is quite contrary to it.
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