Kolkata, March 17 (IANS) Jagdish Prasad Meena, the erstwhile West Bengal Home Secretary, who was removed from the chair by the Election Commission of India hours after it announced two-phase polls in the state, has been shifted by the ECI to Tamil Nadu as a central poll observer.

Incidentally, on Monday, the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, observed that not just removing Meena from the chair of the state home secretary would be enough; he should also be transferred out of the state till the elections are over, and the results are announced.

Incidentally, the ECI’s decision to depute Meena as a central poll observer to Tamil Nadu surfaced a day after that. “The Commission had earlier asked the West Bengal government to release Meena for appointment as a central poll observer for any other state. However, the state government then refused to release him, citing that releasing the state home secretary would cause administrative problems. Now, since, as per the Commission’s order, Meena is no longer the state home secretary, there is no problem in deputing him to any other state, as a poll observer,” confirmed an insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.

Now questions arise, whether the ECI will follow Meena’s example in case of other bureaucrats and Indian Police Service officers, who had been removed from their respective chairs during the last 36 hours.

Along with Meena, the ECI also removed the erstwhile West Bengal Chief Secretary, Nandini Chakraborty. The ECI also observed that neither Chakraborty nor Meena would be involved with any sort of election-related duty.

The ECI on Monday removed the erstwhile state Director General of Police, Peeyush Pandey; Commissioner of Kolkata Police, Supratim Sarkar and the Director General (law & order) Vineet Goyal.

On Monday night, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, expressing anguish over the manner in which these bureaucrats and police officials were removed from their posts without prior consultation with the state government.

–IANS

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