Kolkata, March 25 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday approached the Election Commission of India (ECI), seeking the removal of Jayant Kant, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from the Bihar cadre, as the Commission-appointed police observer for four assembly constituencies in the minority-dominated Malda district of West Bengal, because he is the husband of a BJP leader from Bihar.

A letter on this count was submitted to the ECI by Trinamool Congress’s national working committee member and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, seeking Kant’s removal from the position.

A Trinamool Congress leader said the communiqué to the Commission claimed that Kant’s wife, Smriti Paswan, is not only a member of the BJP but also portrays herself as a ‘loyal soldier’ of the party, and has expressed her desire to contest elections from the Jamui Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar.

She joined the BJP at a function in Patna in February 2024.

The Trinamool leader argued that those appointed as police observers should have an unbiased image. The leader said that in such a situation, it is impossible for a person whose wife is an active member of a political party to perform his duties as a police observer in an unbiased manner, and hence he should be removed from that duty.

Trinamool Congress demanded that Kant be removed from the position of police observer and relieved of any election-related duties. The party asked the ECI to replace him with an officer of a clean and unbiased image.

Earlier in the day, Trinamool Congress approached the ECI seeking the immediate removal of the new returning officer (RO) appointed for the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency in South Kolkata, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a Trinamool candidate, is pitted against Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP candidate.

Trinamool Congress claimed that the officer, being an extremely close confidant of the Leader of Opposition and virtually operating under his instructions, was unlikely to discharge his election-related duties in an unbiased manner.

–IANS

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