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New Delhi: Following the announcement of the poll schedule for the five upcoming assembly elections, the Election Commission of India’s move to transfer poll-bound West Bengal’s top bureaucracy and police officers has met with criticism from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said in a letter to the Election Commission that while the poll body has the authority to transfer officers during the election period, its actions are “arbitrary and unprecedented”. She also wrote that the “large-scale transfer of senior officials, without consultation, reason or any allegation of misconduct, seriously disrupts administration and raises questions about institutional neutrality”.

Escalating her confrontation with the poll body since the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, where 60 lakh voters are in limbo, Banerjee on Friday (March 20) accused the Election Commission of being the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s “parrot” and said that the Narendra Modi-led Union government was imposing “President’s Rule which is not even unannounced”, in West Bengal.

Former chief election commissioners The Wire spoke to said that while the Election Commission has the authority to conduct bureaucratic reshuffles during the election period, a consultative process is conventionally involved. This typically includes setting up a panel of officers recommended by the state government before such changes are put into effect.

Meanwhile, TMC Member of Parliament and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, who filed a PIL in Calcutta High Court against the Election Commission’s actions on Friday, told The Wire that the Election Commission can conduct elections, but it cannot “run the state government”.

Consultation convention

Former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat said that according to convention, if there is any complaint or material against an officer involved in the election process, then the Election Commission decides to take cognisance and remove them.

“Once this decision is made, the Election Commission asks the state government to suggest a panel of three eligible officers to fill in those posts. And out of those, the Election Commission picks and chooses the one most........

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