KOLKATA: Election Commission’s mass transfer of senior IAS and IPS officers within Bengal was a form of “unpromulgated President’s Rule”, CM Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday.The EC’s action was a “deliberate design to seize control of Bengal through coercion and institutional manipulation”, Banerjee posted on X.
“What we are witnessing is nothing short of an undeclared emergency… driven by political vendetta, not democratic principles,” she added before writing to chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar urging the EC to refrain from such “arbitrary, unilateral and biased” action.The poll body had transferred over 60 Bengal officers till Wednesday.“The state, being stripped of its key administrative and police leadership, may not be able to respond effectively,” Banerjee said, adding that the EC should be held responsible for any failure in maintaining law and order.Banerjee’s protests coincided with the EC on Thursday pausing some of its inter-state transfers of senior police officers. Bidhannagar CP Murlidhar Sharma and Siliguri CP Syed Waquar Raza, who were asked to leave for Tamil Nadu, were told to wait. Later, transfer orders for Barrackpore CP Praveen Tripathi and Howrah CP Akash Magharia to Tamil Nadu and outgoing Birbhum Amandeep’s transfer to Karnataka were put on hold as well.
