The West Bengal government on Tuesday, acting on an Election Commission ultimatum, registered FIRs against four state government employees, for alleged “grave lapses” and violations of data security policies over electoral roll revisions during the ongoing SIR exercise in the state.
The police complaints were filed merely hours before the EC-set deadline of 5 pm.
The action was taken six months after the EC had directed the state to initiate criminal cases against the accused.
The accused personnel were allegedly involved in adding over a hundred fictitious names to voter lists in Baruipur Purba Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district and in Moyna AC in Purba Medinipur.
The four officials named in the FIR are from Baruipur-Purba and Moyna Assembly constituencies. They include two West Bengal Civil Service officers serving as Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) — Debottam Dutta Choudhury (Baruipur-Purba) and Biplab Sarkar (Moyna) — and two AEROs — Tathagata Mondal (Baruipur) and Sudipta Das (Moyna). A casual Data Entry Operator, Surojit Halder, who had already been suspended, was also named.
Simultaneously, the EC also suspended three micro-observers on Tuesday.
In a “X” handle post, the CEO office of West Bengal wrote, “On the report of ECI appointed District Electoral Roll Observers, 3 (three) Micro Observers have been suspended by Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal today afternoon. Electoral Roll Micro Observers (ERMOs) being under deputation to ECI are directed to perform their duties diligently and not to outsource /delegate their work to anyone else failing which they will be liable for the consequences.”
Earlier on Sunday, the EC suspended seven Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) in West Bengal over “serious misconduct, dereliction of duty and misuse of statutory powers” in connection with the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while addressing the issue on Tuesday, said, “Why are you worried about filing FIR. Many such FIRs have also been filed against me.”
However, the chief minister strongly objected to the EC’s decision to suspend seven AEROs, stating, “They will not be related to any election-related duty. But they will be engaged in alternative areas by the state government. I am sure they will perform well there.” “They were not given any opportunity to present their side. The Commission is constantly threatening electoral officers and interfering with the state government’s jurisdiction. I request the Commission to function more democratically,” CM Banerjee added.
The EC had first ordered the suspension and prosecution of the four officials on August 5, 2025, alleging fraudulent registration of 127 voters using forged documents.
The state government, however, initially resisted, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee publicly defending the officers. On August 11, West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant wrote to the EC calling the proposed action “disproportionately harsh.” He was later summoned to Delhi, where he assured the Commission that inquiries would be held. However, the EC gave the West Bengal government a seven-day deadline to act on its directive. On the final day of the seven-day EC deadline, the West Bengal government ordered the suspension of four officials whom the poll panel had directed to be suspended and booked over an alleged fake voters’ list in two Assembly constituencies. The state government, however, did not register an FIR against the officials.
On February 13, the EC met Bengal chief secretary Nandini Chakraborty in Delhi and directed the state a fresh deadline to file FIRs against the officials alleged to have erred during the SIR exercise, by February 17.