Suvendu brings Bhabanipur returning officer to his office after appointing EC's SIR pointsperson as advisor

Surajit Ray has been posted as the senior deputy secretary at the office of Adhikari, just a day after Subrata Gupta, who oversaw the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll in West Bengal, was appointed as the advisor of the chief minister of the new Bharatiya Janata Party’s government in the state.

Kolkata: Just after completing his task as the Returning Officer in Bhabanipur in Kolkata in the just-concluded elections, bureaucrat Surajit Ray has now been picked up to serve at the office of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress supremo and his predecessor at the helm of the government, in the high-profile constituency.   

 Ray has been posted as the senior deputy secretary at the office of Adhikari, just a day after Subrata Gupta, who oversaw the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll in West Bengal, was appointed as the advisor of the chief minister of the new Bharatiya Janata Party’s government in the state.

Ray was serving as an additional director at the Directorate of Land Revenue and Survey of the state government of West Bengal. He was appointed as the Returning Officer of Bhabanipur by the Election Commission during the assembly elections. The TMC repeatedly accused him of being known for his proximity to Adhikari as well as of being biased in favour of the BJP. He was also accused of trying to restrict Mamata’s campaigning in Bhabanipur.

 Adhikari took on Mamata, then chief minister, in Bhabanipur, her home constituency, and defeated her by a margin of 15105 votes.

The TMC repeatedly demanded before the April 29 polling in Bhabanipur that the EC must replace Ray with another unbiased Returning Officer. The EC asked the state government to submit a proposal naming three officers to replace Ray. But the poll panel finally decided to let Ray continue as the Returning Officer. Mamata and her TMC alleged that the BJP, with the help of Election Commission officers, manipulated and committed irregularities at the counting centre, leading to Adhikari's victory in Bhabanipur.

 Ray has been shifted to the Chief Minister’s Office just a day after Adhikari took over the helm of the new BJP government in the state, succeeding Mamata.

The new BJP government in West Bengal on Saturday appointed retired bureaucrat Subrata Gupta, who oversaw the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state, as his advisor. The roll revision exercise in West Bengal led to the deletion of about 91 lakh people from the lists of voters ahead of the just-concluded assembly elections. The Trinamool Congress, which has now been voted out of power, had alleged that the EC had embarked on the roll revision exercise in the poll-bound state only to ensure an electoral advantage for the BJP.

The BJP, however, claimed that the roll revision was a necessary exercise to remove the dead and duplicate voters, as well as the illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar, from the electoral rolls of West Bengal. Adhikari, himself, had repeatedly stated during the roll revision exercise that it would make it difficult for the TMC to win because the illegal migrants, whom Mamata Banerjee’s party had turned into its vote bank, would be removed.

 Gupta had been appointed by the EC as the Special Roll Observer on November 30, 2025, to oversee the exercise of revision of the list of voters in West Bengal. He remained a special observer of the EC during the two-phase polling in the state.