Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) The West Bengal government has sent a panel of three Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers from the state cadre to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the latter to appoint one of them as the new Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state.

The erstwhile CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, is currently the Chief Secretary of the state. He was appointed to that chair soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led new state cabinet under the leadership of the state’s ninth Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari, took charge.

At the same time, the erstwhile ECI-appointed special poll observer, Subrata Gupta, was appointed as the chief advisor to the new Chief Minister. Both Agarwal and Gupta were credited with effectively handling the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state, along with the smooth and peaceful conduct of the recently concluded Assembly polls.

The panel of the three IAS officers whose names have been recommended to the ECI by the new state government include that of Neelam Meena, Tanmay Chakrabarty and Moumita Godara Basu.

Meena is the seniormost among them, being an IAS officer of the 1998 batch. Next in seniority comes Chakraborty, an IAS officer of the 2006 batch. Basu is a 2007-batch IAS officer.

Agarwal, an IAS officer of the 1990-batch of the West Bengal cadre, became the CEO of West Bengal in March 2025. Before that, he was handling the duties as the Additional Chief Secretary of the state’s fire and emergency services, forest and disaster management department in the previous Mamata Banerjee-led government.

To recall, immediately after polling dates for Assembly elections were announced by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, in March this year, the ECI removed the then Chief Secretary, Nandini Chakrabarty and replaced her with Dushyant Nariala.

Again, after the new government took charge, Nariala was transferred as the West Bengal government’s Resident Commissioner in Delhi, and was replaced by Agarwal.

Nandini Chakraborty, as the “principal coordinator for development works”, a post directly under the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO, is currently handling the crucial assignment of ensuring the smooth handover of land to the Border Security Force (BSF) to erect barbed wire fencing at the international border with Bangladesh in the state.

–IANS

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