Kolkata, June 25 (IANS) The West Bengal Home and Hill Affairs Department on Thursday issued a notification appointing Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Krishna Gupta as the new State Election Commissioner.

Gupta, a 1991-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, is currently posted as the Additional Chief Secretary to the West Bengal Cooperation Department. He is slated to retire from service on June 30, following which he will take over as the new State Election Commissioner.

The post of the West Bengal State Election Commissioner had been lying vacant for almost a year after the end of the tenure of the previous incumbent, Rajiv Sinha, also a retired IAS officer, whose last bureaucratic assignment was as the Chief Secretary of West Bengal.

It is learnt that West Bengal Governor R.N. Ravi had given his assent to the appointment of Gupta as the next State Election Commissioner under Article 243K(1) of the Constitution and Sections 3(1) and 3A(1) of the West Bengal State Election Commission Act, 1998. The notification was issued by the Chief Secretary of the state, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, on the directions of the Governor.

The role of the State Election Commissioner in conducting elections to panchayats, municipalities, municipal corporations and other local self-governing bodies is crucial.

The new State Election Commissioner will be responsible for conducting various electoral processes in the coming months. Incidentally, elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and some municipalities and municipal corporations are scheduled to be held in December this year.

Therefore, it was necessary to appoint a new State Election Commissioner before then. The municipal elections will be supervised by the State Election Commission. In that context, the appointment of Krishna Gupta as the new State Election Commissioner is being viewed as significant from an administrative perspective.

The new West Bengal government under the leadership of the Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari, also has plans for completing the work of ward realignment before the forthcoming urban civic body elections.

Recently, the Chief Minister visited the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and said that, since the number of voters varied from one ward to another, the wards needed to be realigned urgently.

If seats in the municipalities are to be realigned, the State Election Commission is also responsible for that process. In this context, the state government has appointed a new State Election Commissioner.

–IANS

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