In what could be termed as the “largest single-day” bureaucratic reshuffle, carried out hours before the Election Commission (EC) announced the date for conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in nine states and three Union Territories (UTs), including West Bengal, the state government on Monday transferred 64 IAS officers and 457 WBCS officers, including 14 district magistrates, several special secretaries, OSDs, BDOs, SDOs, and ADMs.
The state government called the transfers “routine” and said that most of the transferred DMs held the post for over three years.

“It was expected that after the SIR announcement, the EC would move out those district magistrates who have held the post for more than three years. So, before the ECI could do that, the state administration transferred them to avoid controversy,” said a senior administrative official, requesting anonymity.

The EC on Monday announced that the SIR would begin in the state from November 4.

Among those transferred was DM of North 24 Parganas, Sharad Kumar Dwivedi, who has been moved to the Health and Family Welfare Department as secretary. Shashank Sethi, the managing director of WBHIDCO (West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation), will take charge as DM of North 24 Parganas.

Sumit Gupta, the DM of South 24 Parganas, has been appointed Municipal Commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, replacing Dhaval Jain, who has been made the DM of Birbhum.

While Murshidabad DM Rajarshi Mitra will replace Shashank Sethi as MD of WBHIDCO, Nitin Singhania will take charge as DM of Murshidabad.

Rajat Nanda, the DM of Purulia, has been appointed Director of Tourism; and Darjeeling DM Preeti Goyal has been moved to Malda. Birbhum DM Bidhan Roy has been moved to the Food and Supplies Department as social secretary.

Meanwhile, Haldia Development Authority CEO Kontam Sudhir has been made the DM of Purulia.

Science and Technology Department Secretary Godala Kiran Kumar was named the divisional commissioner of Medinipur, while Panchayat and Rural Development Department Special Secretary Kuhuk Bhushan was posted as DM of Kalimpong.

New district magistrates have also been appointed in Malda, Jhargram, Purba and Paschim Medinipur, Hooghly, and Dakshin Dinajpur.

The officers are expected to play nodal roles in the SIR exercise, and it would become untenable for the state government to make further reshuffles without the authorisation of the EC once the schedule has been announced, an official said.

Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP shot a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, demanding “immediate annulment of the irregular transfers done without EC approval”.

The BJP alleged that the transfers were an attempt by the Mamata Banerjee government to thwart the upcoming SIR exercise.

“Chief Minister 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.

Senior BJP leader and former state unit chief Rahul Sinha said it was “not a routine transfer”.

“These DMs held their positions for years. Now, since SIR will start, the state government is forced to change so many of them. This is to save themselves from embarrassment,” the BJP leader said.

CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakraborty said the reshuffle was done by the TMC government with a “definite purpose”. “In our state, no rules are being followed… There is a definite purpose of the transfer. Who knows what is the plan of the government,” the CPI(M) leader said.

The TMC said the Opposition was trying to make the “routine transfers” an issue by “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. The Opposition has no issue. That is why they are creating an issue out of this,” said Debangshu Bhattacharya, the president of TMC social media and IT cell.

On August 22 this year, on an EC directive, the state government suspended four officials, including two Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) – Debottam Dutta Choudhury and Biplab Sarkar – and two Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), Tathagata Mandal and Sudipta Das, over alleged fraudulent voter list entries in Baruipur Purba and Moyna Assembly constituencies. A data entry operator was also suspended earlier.

The EC will conduct the second phase of the SIR in 12 states and Union Territories, including West Bengal — where elections will be due early next year, between November and February.
The exercise will begin on November 4 and continue till December 4. The draft electoral rolls will be released on December 9, and the final rolls will be published on February 7.