West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has now written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, putting on record her protest against the state’s removal of top bureaucrats ahead of the assembly election. Calling the move “arbitrary” and a matter of “deep concern”, she wrote that the Commission should “refrain from adopting such unilateral measures in the future”.
While the Commission has the powers to make such changes, during the previous elections, they have “consistently consulted the State Government as a matter of constitutional propriety and administrative convention,” Banerjee wrote. The Commission would request the state government to furnish a panel of three officers and would make its selections from that list.
The current move, she wrote, risks “diluting the long-standing legacy, credibility and institutional integrity of the Election Commission of India and also impinges upon the foundational principles of our constitutional framework”.
Read: “Anti-Women, Anti-Bengali”: Mamata Banerjee Slams Poll Body Over Officers’ Removal
The Chief Minister has been on the warpath since the Commission, shortly after announcing the election dates, removed Chief Secretary Nandini Chakravorty, state police chief Peeyush Pandey, Kolkata Police Commissioner Supratim Sarkar, and West Bengal’s Home Secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena. The poll body said they would not be given any election-related assignment.
Banerjee said the removal of the Chief Secretary indicated that the poll body was anti-women. The Commission, she added, has removed even competent non-Bengali officers, making it clear that they were “hand-picking only those who are willing to do the BJP’s bidding.”
Read: Election Commission’s Reshuffle Hours After Poll Announcement, Trinamool Hits Back
The Commission has replaced Chakravorty with Dushyant Nariala, an IAS officer of the 1993 batch.
Earlier today, the Trinamool Congress staged a day-long walkout from the Rajya Sabha in protest against the Election Commission’s decision.
The Commission has said its move is meant to ensure a peaceful, violence-free election in the state. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has said the poll body is a constitutional authority and questioning its decisions in parliament is inappropriate and unproductive.
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