A fresh controversy emerged in West Bengal after the Election Commission of India (ECI) named Home Secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena as one of the central observers for the Assembly elections in other states.
The poll body asked Meena and other officials to attend the meeting of central observers scheduled for February 5 and 6.
ECI sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, asking the officer to ensure the presence of such officers.
“The officer(s) may be informed that unauthorised absence from the Briefing Meeting shall be viewed very seriously by the Commission and may lead to initiation of disciplinary proceedings against the officer(s) concerned,” the letter stated.
“You are requested to ensure the service of this Briefing Meeting notice on the officer(s) within 24 hours, immediately under proper acknowledgement, through any available means/resources. It is further requested that a confirmation report in writing, along withan acknowledgement of the officers) concerned, may be sent through the email of the undersigned for the perusal of the Commission,” it added.
According to a section of state government officials, ECI normally excludes the home secretary and the chief secretary as central observers, an action which they said could lead to another confrontation with the Bengal Government.
However, ECI denied such allegations. “Multiple times we asked to give names of IAS and IPS officers from 1996 batches to 2016 batches, but the state government didn’t give. So, we chose names randomly,” a senior ECI official said.
He added that ECI doesn’t name additional chief secretary-rank officers as observers, and that Jagdish Prasad Meena is not an Additional Chief Secretary; however, he was also given additional charge of the Home Secretary.
The state government has yet to say whether it will allow Meena to participate as an observer.
In addition to Meena, the Commission named Asvini Kumar Yadav, Salim P B, Avanindra Singh, Saumitra Mohan, Smaraki Mahapatra, Archana, Sanjay Bansal, P Mohan Gandhi, Shubhanjan Das, P Ulaganathan, Saurav Pahari, Rachna Bhagat, Ritendra Narayan Basu Roy Choudhury, and Rajanvir Singh Kapur.
On the other hand, IPS officers who were called are Bharat Lal Meena, Rajesh Kumar Yadav, Praveen Kumar Tripathi, Rishikesh Meena, Sabya Sachi Raman Mishra, Sunil Kumar Choudhary, Akhilesh Kumar Chaturvedi, Sukesh Kumar Jain, Anoop Jaiswal and Sudheer Kumar Neelakantam.
Apart from West Bengal, polls are scheduled this year in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry.