Kolkata, July 30 (IANS) The leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Wednesday, advised the district magistrates in West Bengal to ignore any election-related verbal instruction from their higher authorities in the state government.

Adhikari said that since the role of the district magistrates as the district election officers (DEOs) comes under the authority of the Chief Election Commissioner and the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, verbal instructions from their seniors or political bosses in the state administration would not be binding on them.

Adhikari also said that the verbal instructions on this count need to be ignored, as information has already surfaced that the state government had violated the Election Commission of India (ECI) norms.

“BLOs, selected per ECI guidelines and uploaded on the portal concerned, can only be changed as per the ECI-issued guidelines. In case of exigency, proposals with justification and same-category replacements must be sent to the CEO’s Office. EROs and DEOs must comply strictly without taking any arbitrary measures as per whim, as failure to follow norms may lead with consequences,” Adhikari said.

At the same time, the leader of the opposition had also requested the ECI to initiate an immediate enquiry into this gross overreach by the West Bengal government.

“If found guilty, the ECI should initiate strict action against the person concerned as per the Constitutional provisions. The ECI must assert its authority and ensure no illegal interference tarnishes Bengal’s elections,” the leader of the opposition said.

He also claimed that the overreach of the West Bengal Government in the election-related matters has reached alarming levels.

“Following Mamata Banerjee’s interference in the BLO training matter, her ‘yes-man’ Chief Secretary Manoj Pant has now verbally instructed district magistrates to replace the 1,000 BLOs who were trained in Delhi.”

On Tuesday, the leader of the wrote a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, requesting the latter to take suo motu action against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly making unauthorised attempts to interfere in the electoral process by “intimidation and maliciously influencing the booth level officers (BLOs)” in the state.

In his letter, the LoP has referred to an administrative meeting addressed by the Chief Minister at Birbhum district on Monday, where she accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of beginning the process of training the booth-level officers (BLOs) in the state without giving prior intimation to the state government.

During her address, the Chief Minister also issued a subtle note of caution, reminding that those BLOs were state government employees at the end of the day.

–IANS

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