West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal has been appointed as the state's chief secretary, said an official order on Monday. The development comes two days after Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari was sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal, succeeding Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee.
Dushyant Nariala, who is the incumbent Chief Secretary, has been amed Principal Resident Commissioner in New Delhi.
"The Governor is pleased to appoint Shri Manoj Kumar Agarwal, IAS (WB:1990), Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal and ex-officio Additional Chief Secretary, Home and Hill Affairs (Election) Department, Govt. of West Bengal as Chief Secretary to the Government of West Bengal until further order(s). This is issued in the interest of public service," the order read.
Agarwal is a 1990-batch IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer of West Bengal cadre. He was in-charge of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in West Bengal that resulted around 91 lakh voters getting removed from electoral rolls, leading to allegations and counter-allegations between the BJP and the TMC.
Earlier in the day, the TMC alleged that the SIR drive was responsible for altering the West Bengal poll results in favour of the BJP. During hearing in Supreme Court, the TMC claimed that the margin of victory was lower than the number of voters removed during the drive in nearly 31 assembly constituencies.
The Supreme Court, which had earlier refused to stay the exercise, now has told the TMC to file fresh applications regarding their claim. But the BJP has dismissed TMC's claims and said that the data provided by Mamata Banerjee's party is not backed by poll data or SIR figures.
"We are aware of 49 seats where the SIR deletion figure is higher than the victory margin of candidates. Only 12 per cent of seats falling in this category went to the BJP, while the TMC won 26 per cent of those seats. In fact, both seats won by the Congress in these elections fall within this category, giving them a 100 per cent strike rate," said BJP spokesperson Keya Ghosh, as quoted by news agency PTI.
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