State transfers 527 IAS, WBCS officers in pre-SIR shake-up
Times of India | 28 October 2025Many of the transferred officers have already served between two-and-a-half years and four years in their posts and would have been at risk of overshooting Election Commission's rule barring officials from being in the same chair for more than three years in a row when elections are announced (Bengal election dates are likely to be announced by March 2026).
The state's transfer decision also preceded the announcement of the SIR of electoral rolls in Delhi on Monday. Effecting such large-scale transfers after the start of the EC process would have been "much more complicated and difficult", say legal experts. The SIR process under Article 324(1) of Constitution, like Model Code of Conduct that kicks in after a poll date announcement, also invests in the EC the same powers of "superintendence, direction and control", they explain.
Administrative officers including DMs and BDOs, double up as election officers under the EC during voter roll verification.
SIR in Bengal is likely to be followed almost immediately by the announcement of poll dates (by March 2026). This would have left the state with a very small window to make the transfers, officers said.
A senior state officer, however, maintained the transfers were "routine".
Officials indicated that similar transfers might have to be effected in the police administration as well (again, to meet the EC's three-year-in-a-post stipulation).
But Bengal will have time to implement it (any time before the poll schedule announcement) as cops do not come directly under the EC's control during SIR.
The state order, signed last Friday, transferred 14 district magistrates (part of the total 527 officials transferred). A senior official admitted that the state had got "feelers" from the EC about its "exasperation" with "the slow pace of SIR preparatory work in some districts". "DMs also become district electoral registration officers once the SIR process starts and come under the EC's direct purview. The EC could have asked for transfer of those DMs with whose work it was not satisfied," a retired bureaucrat explained.
