Eighteen Senior Officers in Bengal Are Reorganized by the Poll Body

In West Bengal, which is scheduled to hold elections, the Election Commission on Wednesday approved a new wave of senior officer reorganization, designating five IPS officers as deputy inspectors general (DIGs) and 13 IAS officers as DMs-cum-DEOs.
In order to put the IAS officers at the forefront of district-level poll management and oversight, they were appointed as district magistrates (DMs), who will simultaneously function as district election officers (DEOs).

Officers Jitin Yadav (Cooch Behar), Sandeep Ghosh (Jalpaiguri), Vivek Kumar (Uttar Dinajpur), Rajanvir Singh Kapur (Malda), and R Arjun (Murshidabad) have been assigned as DMs-cum-DEOs, according to an official statement.

In a similar vein, Sweta Agarwal in Purba Bardhaman, Shilpa Gorisaria in North 24 Parganas, Abhishek Kumar Tiwary in South 24 Parganas, Harishankar Panicker in Darjeeling, T Balasubramanian in Alipurduar, and Srikant Palli in Nadia have been appointed as DM-cum-DEO. Randhir Kumar will be the DEO of Kolkata South, and Smita Pandey will be the Municipal Commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and DEO of Kolkata North.

Five IPS officers were transferred and assigned as DIGs by the election panel in a concurrent order. Ajeet Singh Yadav will be the DIG for Murshidabad, and Rathod Amitkumar Bharat will be the DIG for Raiganj Range. Anjali Singh has been assigned as DIG, Jalpaiguri, Kankar Prosad Barui as DIG, Presidency Range, and Shrihari Pandey as DIG, Bardhaman.

The panel mandated that the instructions be put into action immediately and that compliance reports regarding the officers’ joining be turned in by March 19.Additionally, it said that officers who were transferred out should not be given any election-related responsibilities until the poll was finished.

Following the announcement of the election schedule on Sunday, the poll body made a number of changes, including the removal of DGP Peeyush Pandey and Kolkata Police Commissioner Supratim Sarkar, as well as the transfer of Chief Secretary Nandini Chakravorty and Home Secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena.West Bengal’s 294-member parliament will be polled in two stages on April 23 and 29. The results will be tallied on May 4.