PTI, Kolkata, Aug 12, 2025 : A day after the West Bengal government wrote to the Election Commission of India that it doesn’t intend to suspend just yet its officers alleged to have committed “irregularities” in electoral roll revision, the poll panel on Tuesday summoned state Chief Secretary Manoj Pant to Delhi to explain the decision, sources said.
The state’s top bureaucrat was directed to report in person to Nirvachan Sadan, the ECI headquarters in the national capital, by 5 PM on August 13.
The move came in response to Pant’s communication to the ECI on Monday, stating that suspending the identified officers and filing FIRs against them, as directed by the poll panel, would be “disproportionately harsh” and have a “demoralising impact” on the officers’ community in Bengal.
The state government, instead, chose to remove two of the five ECI-identified officials from active election duty for now and initiate an “internal inquiry” into the matter.
It is interpreted by observers as a fresh flashpoint in the ongoing face-off between the Mamata Banerjee-led state government and the ECI.
Sources in the state secretariat ‘Nabanna’ said that the Chief Secretary was likely to fly to Delhi on Wednesday and meet the Commission, as directed.
Pant on Monday had responded to an EC-set deadline to execute a suspension order against five officials — two Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), two Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), and a casual data entry operator — for allegedly committing irregularities while preparing electoral rolls in Baruipur Purba and Moyna Assembly constituencies in South 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur districts respectively.
The poll panel had also directed the Chief Secretary to lodge FIRs against all five accused and sought an action taken report from the top bureaucrat at the earliest.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had questioned the Commission’s jurisdiction and legality of the move while alleging that the BJP was using the ECI to “intimidate state government officers”.
“We will not suspend them; we will protect you. I will continue to be your ‘pehredar’ (guard),” Mamata said at a public meeting in Jhargram last week.
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