Kolkata: Hours before the EC's expected announcement of the schedule for the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in several states, including West Bengal, the state government on Monday notified a bulk rejig of over 200 bureaucrats and senior officials across districts.
As many as 61 IAS and 145 WBCS (Executive) officers were shuffled by the Personnel and Administrative Reforms (P&AR) of the West Bengal government, making it among the largest transfers at one go in recent times.
The reshuffle included 10 district magistrates, multiple special secretary ranked officers, several officers-on-special duty (OSDs) and a bunch of ADMs and SDOs from both IAS and WBCS cadres.
The MD of Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), municipal commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and CEO of the Haldia Development Authority also featured among the list of transferees.
The list of transferred DMs comprises those of North and South 24 Parganas, Cooch Behar, Murshidabad, Purulia, Darjeeling, Malda, Birbhum, Jhargram and Purba Medinipur districts.
The personnel in question are expected to play nodal roles in the upcoming SIR exercise, and it would become untenable for the state government to make further reshuffles once the schedule is announced by the EC, an official said.
While the political opposition in the state alleged that the move was an attempt by the Mamata Banerjee administration to thwart the upcoming SIR exercise, the ruling TMC called the notifications merely "routine".
"Mamata Banerjee is sensing trouble for her party once this exercise is successfully completed and a large number of fake voters are deleted from the electoral rolls. She is, hence, trying everything in her hand to disturb the process by making such last-minute bulk transfers," BJP leader Sajal Ghosh alleged.
Rubbishing the accusation, TMC IT cell head Debangshu Bhattacharya said the BJP is "clutching at straws" to level wild allegations.
"Such transfers take place in the government as a routine measure across the year. There's no reason why one should draw a connection between this and the SIR announcement. This is opposition for opposition's sake," he said.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
