West Bengal elections 2026: White coats get poll duty call-up, medical community cries foul
Times of India | 26 March 2026
KOLKATA: Some presiding officers at polling booths may not be wearing stethoscopes or the doctor’s white coat this election but that does not mean they are not doctors.
Election Commission has requisitioned 48 doctors at Prafulla Chandra Sen Govt Medical College and Hospital in Arambag for poll duty, triggering howls of protests from officials and the medical community. The hospital, which serves a wide swathe covering towns and villages in Hooghly and East Burdwan, has 111 faculty members.
The doctors on the EC list are all senior faculty members. Fourteen non-medical staff members, too, have been requisitioned for poll duty.
Hospital officials and doctors were taken aback when they received the notice. “This is the first time in my 25year career as a faculty member that I have been drafted for poll duty. Patient care services will be crippled if 48 doctors stay away from the hospital. Students will suffer, too, as we are all teachers,” said a senior faculty member.
“Of the eight faculty members in our department, four have been called for election duty. This is unusual. We provide essential and emergency services,” said another faculty member.
All 48 doctors on the list have been designated as presiding officers. They have applied for exemption from poll duty following a discussion with principal Rama Prasad Roy.
“I have spoken to the district magistrate (who is also the district election officer). There seems to have been a communication gap that led to this situation. We have been assured that the doctors will be exempted from poll duty,” the principal said.
Hospital administrators could not recall the last time doctors were assigned such responsibility.
Doctors and other medical staff provide emergency services. So, we do not usually see orders asking them to report for election duty,” said Indranil Biswas, principal of Medical College Hospital Kolkata. “We have received a requisition notice for 22 clerical staff members.”
At College of Medicine and Sagar Dutta Hospital in Kamarhati, three clerical staff members have got the requisition notice.
“This is the first time I am hearing that doctors are being given poll duty,” said principal Parthapratim Pradhan.
When asked about the notice to Arambag doctors, CEO Manoj Aggarwal said, “The DEO has the power to exempt anyone from election duty. This (medical service) is an emergency duty. They can all be exempted.”
An EC official shifted the blame to the state health department. “We had sought names from govt departments before making appointments. The names of these doctors were on the list sent by the health department.”
(Written with inputs from Kaushik Pradhan in Kolkata)