West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | UP IPS officer lands in controversy ahead of final phase of voting

Sharma, who is known to be a tough cop, was appointed by the Election Commission as one of the police observers in poll-bound West Bengal.

Kolkata: An Indian Police Service officer from Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Pal Sharma, has landed in a controversy ahead of the final phase of voting in West Bengal, where the Election Commission appointed him as one of the police observers for the assembly polls.

A day after a video posted by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s leader Amit Malviya on X purportedly showed the IPS officer warning the family members of a Trinamool Congress candidate in the South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, the ruling party’s supporters held protests against him when he returned to the same spot.

Mahua Maitra, a Trinamool Congress member in the Lok Sabha, posted an old video showing a man dancing with women. She tagged Sharma with the post and wrote: “Good to see you enjoying yourself. Hope your policing skills are better than your dancing skills.”

Sharma, who is known to be a tough cop, is posted as an Additional Commissioner of Police in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. He was appointed by the Election Commission as one of the police observers in poll-bound West Bengal.

A video posted by Malviya has Sharma going to the neighbourhood of Jahangir Khan, the TMC’s bet in the Falta assembly constituency in the South 24 Parganas district of the state, and asking his family members to tell the candidate that he and his supporters must stop intimidating the voters. He warned Jahangir’s family of the consequences if such intimidation continued. He was accompanied by the personnel of the central paramilitary force.

Khan is known to be a close aide of TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

Malviya referred to Sharma, who joined the IPS in 20111, as “Singham” and the “encounter specialist” in his post on X, adding: “He wasted no time in setting the tone, firmly reading the riot act to the family members of Abhishek Banerjee’s close aide, Jahangir Khan. The message is loud and clear: ‘the era of intimidation and impunity is over, and law and order will prevail, and those attempting to influence the electoral process will be held accountable’.”

The TMC alleged that Sharma overstepped his mandate as a police observer.

Sharma went back to the neighbourhood on Tuesday. The TMC supporters staged a protest against him and blocked some of the vehicles in his convoy.

The people of Falta will not be coerced by any police officer from Uttar Pradesh appointed by the BJP, said Khan, adding: “Such actions are not acceptable in a democratic system”.

“It appears that the police officer from Uttar Pradesh has been appointed in West Bengal to disturb peace somehow,” senior TMC leader and a minister in the West Bengal government, Chandrima Bhattacharya, said.

The Calcutta High Court, however, made it clear that it would refrain from passing any orders concerning officials engaged in election duty until Thursday, when the second phase of polling in the West Bengal Assembly elections is scheduled. The observation came during a mention by a lawyer before Justice Krishna Rao about the alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by the IPS officer from Uttar Pradesh.

Akhilesh Yadav, the Supremo of the Samajwadi Party, also posted on X, alleging that the BJP was sending police officers from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal, but such tactics would not help them dislodge Mamata Banerjee and her TMC from power.

The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal, however, said that the IPS officer’s comments were intended to raise the confidence of the voters so that they could take part in the elections without any fear.

The EC ordered the removal of Falta’s Block Development Officer, Sourav Hazra, for allegedly not cooperating with the police observer.