Bengal SIR: ECI directs Bengal govt to suspend 7 AEROs
Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) had directed the office of the West Bengal Chief Secretary, Nandini Chakraborty, to immediately suspend seven more assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) engaged in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state on charges of dereliction of duty.
To recall, earlier in August last year, the ECI had directed the state government to suspend and register FIRs against two electoral registration officers (EROs) and two AEROs against whom charges of being involved in electoral rolls preparation malpractices were proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The office of the West Bengal Chief Secretary also attracted the ire of the ECI for partially implementing the order by suspending those two EROs and two AEROs, but not registering FIRs against them.
Now, the ECI has directed the Chief Secretary’s office to suspend seven more AEROs involved with the revision exercise. Besides suspending these seven AEROs, the state government has also to initiate departmental disciplinary proceedings against them.
The seven AEROs whose suspensions have been directed by the ECI include Sefaur Rahaman from Samserganj Assembly Constituency in Murshidabad district, Nitish Das from Farakka in Murshidabad, Dalia Ray Choudhury from Maynaguri in Jalpaiguri, Murshid Alam from Suti in Murshidabad, Satyajit Das and Joydeep Kundu from Canning (Purba) in South 24 Parganas, and Debashis Biswas from Debra in West Midnapore
Earlier, on February 14, the ECI had directed the office of the Chief Secretary to register pending FIRs by February 17 against the two EROs and two AEROs, which it had ordered in August last year.
A fresh communication in this regard was sent by the ECI to the state secretariat on Saturday evening, setting February 17 (Tuesday) as the deadline for registering FIRs against these errant electoral officers.
“The ECI noted that despite repeated reminders to register FIRs against these four errant electoral officers, the state government had been lackadaisical in initiating action. Therefore, the Commission decided to fix a deadline for registering FIRs against them,” the CEO office insider said.
Two of the four officers against whom FIRs have been directed to be registered are the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) of Baruipur East Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district, Debottam Dutta Chowdhury, and the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) of the same constituency, Tathagata Mandal.
The other two officers were the ERO of Moyna Assembly constituency in East Midnapore district, Biplob Sarkar, and the AERO of the same constituency, Sudipta Das.
The officers were accused of tampering with the electoral rolls. Based on these allegations, the ECI had directed that the officers be suspended and FIRs be lodged against them.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had criticised the ECI’s directive at that point in time and accused the poll body of acting as a “bonded labour of the BJP”. She had also stated that her government would not take action against its employees.
