West Bengal suspends four officials after EC directive

Kolkata: The West Bengal government has reportedly suspended four officials accused of irregularities in the revision of electoral rolls and has initiated departmental proceedings against them, following directives from the Election Commission of India (ECI), people in the know said.

When asked by ET, the chief election officer of West Bengal, Manoj Agarwal, said he "heard" that the four officials have been suspended.

On August 5, the ECI had directed the chief secretary to suspend these officials for committing "grave lapses" and "failing to perform their duties" for violating the policy of data security by sharing their login credentials of the ER database with unauthorised persons.


Four EROs and AEROs from South 24 Parganas district's Baruipur -- Debottam Dutta Choudhury, WBCS (Exe.), deputy project director (monitoring), district Rural Development Cell, South 24 Parganas, and ERO of 137-Baruipur Purba assembly constituency, Tathagata Mondal, assistant programme officer, MGNREGS, Joynagar-1 Block and AERO of 137, Baruipur Purba AC; Biplab Sarkar, WBCS (Exe.), presently working as district officer minority affairs, Purba Medinipur and ERO of 206 assembly constituency and Sudipta Das, panchayat accounts and audit officer, Tamluk and AERO of 206-Moyna AC, had been directed by the ECI in its letter dated August 5, to be suspended. ET has seen this letter.

The tussle between the ECI and the West Bengal government escalated after the state government had withdrawn an AERO and a data entry operator from election duty.