2 days before polls, Election Commission transfers 5 officers in West Bengal

While District Election Officer of Jhargram, Ayesha Rani, will be attached to the office of Chief Secretary of West Bengal till the completion of the elections, the poll body has ordered that Dr Rajesh Kumar will take charge as ADG West Zone, Joyeshi Dasgupta will be posted as DEO Jhargram, Arijit Sinha as SP of Diamond Harbour, Debashish Dhar as SP of Cooch Behar and Akash Magharia as DC of South Kolkata Police.

Reacting to the decision, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the poll body “BJP Commission” and said that even if the Commission were to transfer all top police officers in her state, it won’t stop her from returning to power.

The saffron party, meanwhile, filed a complaint with the Election Commission on Thursday, accusing Mamata Banerjee of seeking votes by dividing people on communal lines. “Contents of the video reveal that Mamata Banerjee has intentionally, with a malafide objective, attempted to communalise and spread hatred on religious lines,” the BJP wrote.

It added that Mamata Banerjee’s speech was “highly provocative” and its tone and tenor was meant to “aggravate existing differences between communities on religious lines”.

Earlier, the Election Commission had ordered the transfer of West Bengal Director General of Police, Virendra, and appointed P Nirajnayan to his post.

The transfers come a day after the West Bengal government had benched Surajit Kar Purkayastha as the state security advisor. On February 6, the state government had transferred more than a dozen senior IPS officers.