The confrontation between the Bengal government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) ceases to abate despite the Supreme Court’s interventions to streamline Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
Tensions between the two took a new turn after Bengal Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty was summoned by the ECI on Friday and pulled up for non-cooperation. According to sources, the Chief Secretary appeared before the full bench of the EC to explain why the poll panel’s directives could not be implemented so far. The ECI issued a warning to the Chief Secretary regarding compliance with orders on issues like voter list discrepancies.
The ECI also said that political interference with Booth Level Officers will not be tolerated. Also, the EC appointed retired IPS officer N.K. Mishra as the special observer for the SIR on Friday.
The tension arises from the ECI’s push to sanitize voter lists ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections, which the Mamata Banerjee-led government alleges is being done in a way that improperly excludes voters.
The poll panel raised several issues of non-compliance, like it had asked the state government to lodge FIRs against four officers—former EROs and AEROs—of the Baruipur Purba and Moyna Assembly segments for enrolling fictitious voters.
The EC had also asked the state to initiate departmental proceedings and lodge an FIR against the BDO of Basirhat II for appointing 11 additional AEROs to conduct hearings without the EC’s approval.
Similarly, the state govt had also been directed to cancel transfer orders of three IAS officers—Smita Pandey, Randhir Kumar, and Ashwini Kumar Yadav—after they were appointed as district electoral roll observers.
An official pointed out that the Chief Secretary was asked to implement the orders immediately during an hour-long meeting at Nirvachan Sadan.
Besides CS Nandini Chakraborty, the poll body also pulled up District Magistrates, who are also District Election Officers (DEOs), during a video conference for allegedly verifying bogus documents, including newspaper cuttings, blank pages, and unclear images, in addition to testimonials outside the specified list, during the SIR drive.
Sources present at the video conference said top EC officials raised several questions over the activities of the DEOs during the SIR after many anomalies had been detected in the uploading and verification of documents submitted by voters during hearings.
The EC went on to direct the DMs to clean up all fictitious documents from the system by 5pm on February 16.
The EC also warned the DEOs, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and asked them to ensure that no foreigner or ineligible voter was enrolled.
The poll body also warned the officers, saying that documents, which would be verified and on the basis of which the EROs or AEROs would enroll voters, would stay in the system for years, and if any anomaly was detected even after five years, the officers would be prosecuted.
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