Shunted by EC and reinstated in TMC-II, plum postings await Mamata Banerjee’s select four

Kunal Aggarwal, presently the Superintendent of Police of Burdwan, is due for a promotion, said officers, while adding, “It is possible that he will be made the commissioner of the district or alternatively brought to Kolkata.”

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Government sources added that Reddy is likely to be given a constitutional post by the Mamata Banerjee dispensation.

Arnab Ghosh was reinstated as the SP of South Dinajpur from where he had earlier been transferred following orders from Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, who had maintained that complaints had been made against him by the Opposition parties. Ghosh, along with Tanmoy Roy Chowdhury, the SP of North-24 Parganas district is likely to be brought within the fold of Kolkata Police, sources said.

Meanwhile, a shuffle in the present CMO is also likely, government officials said. Prime among the candidates for the new CMO is P B Salim, who was reinstated as DM of South-24 Parganas district, from where he had been shifted out following instructions from the poll panel. While officials maintained that Salim had good relations with the CM, the appointment was likely due to Mamata’s concern that her present CMO “didn’t have good communicators”.

Also likely to be recalled to the CMO is WBSC officer Tapas Chatterjee, who is one of the candidates for the post of personal secretary to the CM. He was controversially appointed as the DM of South Dinajpur in 2013, when Mamata had stuck to her Assembly poll mandate of filling senior administrative positions with “sons of the soil” —-WBCS officers instead of their IAS counterparts. Chowdhury was made the DM of South Dinajpur, in spite of an Allahabad High Court ruling against Mayawati government’s decision to post state civil servants as DMs. The government line, since then has been two-fold —- firstly the appointment of officers is a federal prerogative and secondly the move is yet to be opposed.