Kolkata, Feb 16 (IANS) The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday directly suspended seven Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) engaged in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal on charges of dereliction of duty, without waiting for the state government to comply with the Commission’s directive.

The direction to suspend these seven AEROs had been issued by the Commission to the West Bengal Chief Secretary, Nandini Chakraborty, late on Sunday evening.

However, even before 24 hours had elapsed from the issuance of the directive, the Commission acted directly by suspending the seven AEROs, thereby removing them from SIR-related duties.

The seven AEROs suspended by the ECI are Sefaur Rahaman from Samserganj Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, Nitish Das from Farakka Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, Dalia Ray Choudhury from Maynaguri Assembly constituency in Jalpaiguri district, Murshid Alam from Suti Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, Satyajit Das and Joydeep Kundu from Canning (Purba) Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district, and Debashis Biswas from Debra Assembly constituency in West Midnapore district.

Earlier, in August last year, the ECI had directed the state government to suspend and register FIRs against two Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and two AEROs against whom charges of involvement in electoral roll preparation malpractices were proven beyond reasonable doubt.

On that occasion, the office of the West Bengal Chief Secretary had attracted the ire of the ECI for partially implementing the directive by suspending those two EROs and two AEROs, but not registering FIRs against them.

The Commission had last week set a deadline of February 17 for the West Bengal government to register FIRs against those EROs and AEROs.

Two of the four officers against whom FIRs have been ordered are Debottam Dutta Chowdhury, the Electoral Registration Officer of Baruipur East Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district, and Tathagata Mandal, the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer of the same constituency.

The other two officers are Biplob Sarkar, the Electoral Registration Officer of Moyna Assembly constituency in East Midnapore district, and Sudipta Das, the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer of the same constituency.

These officers were accused of tampering with electoral rolls. Based on these allegations, the ECI had directed that the officers be suspended and FIRs be lodged against them.

–IANS

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