All the Commission’s men (and women)

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has unleashed a massive and unprecedented reshuffle of West Bengal's top administration and police brass, stripping the state government of any control over key posts in the run-up to the 2026 Assembly elections.

In an extraordinary move, it has replaced the chief secretary, home secretary, director-general of police, Kolkata Police commissioner, additional directors-general, 19 senior police officials, five deputy inspectors-general, 11 district magistrates (out of 23) and several district electoral officers.

While this ensures that elections in West Bengal will now be conducted by the ECI's seemingly handpicked officers, it has also underlined a no-confidence motion of sorts against the existing state and police bureaucracy. Earlier, the Centre also sent in R.N. Ravi as the state's new governor, a move which sparked allegations of "unofficial President's Rule", with critics blaming the ECI for running the state like the "Centre’s proxy".

The upheaval began on the afternoon of Sunday, 15 March, when Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced West Bengal’s election schedule at Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan — two-phase voting on 23 and 29 April for the 294-member Assembly, with results on 4 May. The schedule was a compressed version of the eight-phase elections of 2021. The Model Code of Conduct was activated immediately, empowering ECI to initiate the transfers.

In a matter of hours, chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty and home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena were shown the door, with specific instructions to not engage in any election-related duties. Dushyant Nariala (former additional chief secretary, north Bengal development) took over as chief secretary; Sanghamitra Ghosh (former principal secretary, women & child welfare) was made home secretary. Both Nariala and Ghosh are known to play by the book.

While the transfer of a chief secretary is rare, there is precedence of home secretaries being swapped as late as 2019, when incumbent home secretary Atri Bhattacharya was changed.

The police purge followed. Siddhinath Gupta replaced incumbent director-general Peeyush Pandey. Kolkata Police commissioner Supratim Sarkar was replaced by the battle-hardened Ajay Nand. Ajay Mukund Ranade became ADG/IGP (law and order); Natarajan Ramesh Babu was promoted to the rank of DG. Y.S. Jagannath Rao took over as Kolkata’s DCP (central).

In the final tally so far, 19 seniors were shifted, including ADGs Rajesh Kumar Singh (south Bengal) and K. Jayaraman (north Bengal). New commissioners Pranav Kumar (Asansol-Durgapur), Akhilesh Chaturvedi (Howrah), Amit Singh (Barrackpore), Sunil Yadav (Chandannagar) took charge.

At the district level, 12 new SPs were replaced in Barasat, Cooch Behar and West Medinipur among other districts. The spate of transfers continued on 18 March, with five new DIGs taking charge — Rathod Amitkumar Bharat (Raiganj), Ajeet Singh Yadav (Murshidabad), Shrihari Pandey (Bardhaman), Kankar Prasad Barui (Presidency) and Anjali Singh (Jalpaiguri). The state government has been directed to submit its compliance report by 11.00 am, 19 March.

Additionally, 11 district magistrates were deployed on 18 March in key districts like Cooch Behar (Jiten Yadav), Jalpaiguri (Sandeep Ghosh), North Dinajpur (Vivek Kumar), Malda (Rajanvir Singh Kapur), Murshidabad (R. Arjun), Nadia (Srikanth Palli), Purba Bardhaman (Sweta Agarwal), North 24 Parganas (Shilpa Gourisaria), South 24 Parganas (Abhishek Tiwari), Darjeeling (Harichandra Panicker), and Alipurduar (T. Balasubramanyam).

In Kolkata, Smita Pandey took over as the new DEO in north Kolkata (replacing municipal commissioner Sumit Gupta) and Randhir Kumar in south Kolkata.

By resorting to such mass transfers, the ECI has virtually sent packing West Bengal’s existing administration and brought in its handpicked officials who, the ECI seems to believe, will ensure “transparent, fear-free and violence-free elections".

The TMC, predictably, is upset. “This is like an unofficial President’s rule. The Election Commission has become a stooge of a political party and is misusing its authority to fulfil the agenda of a political party,” senior TMC leader Jayprakash Majumder told National Herald.