Also given the marching orders were secretaries in charge of general administration department (GAD) in Himachal Pradesh and Mizoram as well as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, along with the additional commissioners and deputy commissioners of the municipal body.
In West Bengal, where poll violence and other law and order challenges are apprehended, EC shunted out DGP Rajeev Kumar. This is the third time that Kumar, perceived to be close to the dispensation led by Mamata Banerjee, is being dropped from poll-related duties. He was earlier removed by EC in 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 2016 assembly elections. Vivek Sahay was appointed as acting DGP of the state.EC asked the state chief secretaries concerned to send a panel of three names by Monday evening, to choose the replacements. The poll body will take a final decision on Tuesday. Monday’s crackdown on bureaucracy came barely 48 hours after chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar declared EC’s resolve to maintain integrity of the electoral process. The transfers of home secretaries and secretary, GAD across seven states — four of which have BJP or its allies in office — are part of EC’s blanket crackdown on all such officers who are holding dual charge as principal or additional chief secretary in the office of the respective chief ministers.
“That they are working directly under the chief minister may bring their impartiality and neutrality in question, particularly as the home secretary handles law and order and police matters as well as deployment of central forces for poll security. Similarly, the secretary GAD handles personnel matters, including those relating to district magistrates who are also returning officers. The transfers eliminate the scope for any partisanship by virtue of senior poll-related officers working under control of the chief minister,” an EC functionary told TOI.
During the 2019 LS poll in West Bengal, Rajeev Kumar was removed from the post of Additional Director General, CID and attached to the home ministry. However, he was reinstated soon after Mamata Banerjee’s return to office. Even in 2016 assembly polls, Kumar, then Kolkata police commissioner, was removed by EC on grounds of alleged bias.
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Kumar, incidentally, was questioned by CBI in the Saradha scam case in 2019. He had initially resisted the CBI summonses, with Banerjee holding a 70-hour dharna against CBI’s move to question him. In the 2021 assembly polls in Bengal, then DGP Virendra was moved out by EC, based on “adverse reports” from the observers.
EC, objecting to Maharashtra’s failure to shift out senior functionaries of around 7-8 municipal corporations despite their having completed three years or being posted in home district, also ordered the removal of BMC commissioner, additional commissioner and deputy municipal commissioners on Monday and asked for similar transfers in other corporations of the state.
“The municipal commissioners are directly involved in electoral roll updation and setting up polling booths etc,” said an EC officer.