West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | EC continues re-shuffling of senior administrative, police officials in state

Kolkata: The Election Commission (EC) continued re-shuffling the senior administrative and police officials in West Bengal, brushing aside the ruling Trinamool Congress’s allegation that officials were being transferred to facilitate the movement of money and weapons for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the assembly polls in the state.

The EC on Wednesday replaced 13 district magistrates of the state with new bureaucrats, who would also serve as the district election officers. The commission also appointed five new Deputy Inspector Generals of Police, removing the incumbent top cops. Four more police commissioners across the state were also changed.

The commission is likely to deploy nearly 2500 companies of the central paramilitary force during each of the two phases of polling in the state, sources in Kolkata told DH.

The EC had first replaced Nandini Chakravorty with Dushyant Nariala as the chief secretary of the state late at night on Sunday. The poll panel had also appointed Sanghamitra Ghosh as the principal secretary of home and hill affairs, removing Jagadish Prasad Meena as the home secretary.

Meena was later sent to Tamil Nadu as a poll observer. Several other officials of the government of West Bengal were also sent to other poll-bound states as observers.

“The administration of West Bengal has been politicised. There is a complete absence of law and order in West Bengal. The public is not heard... Pre-poll, post-poll violence occurs here, in which the people know the responsibility of the West Bengal administration, Samik Bhattacharya, the state BJP president, said. “Therefore, the Election Commission has taken action from a security perspective”.

“They may change some officers, but they cannot change the mood of West Bengal and the mandate of the people of the state. The TMC, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, would surely win again, and the BJP would be routed,” Kunal Ghosh, a senior TMC leader, said.