KOLKATA: The Election Commission on Wednesday directed that state security adviser Surajit Kar Purkayastha’s “functions and powers be kept in abeyance” till the Bengal poll process got over.
“The SSA remains but his powers will remain suspended till the poll process is over,” a senior government official said. Wednesday’s decision follows earlier EC moves to transfer other senior police officers like state director-general of police Virendra and additional director-general (law and order) Jawed Shamim.
Kar Purkayastha, a 1985-batch IPS officer, is Bengal's first SSA. He has served as the state’s director-general of police and Kolkata’s police commissioner.
The Trinamool Congress called the development “regrettable”. Trinamool MP Saugata Roy said this was a BJP demand for some time. “The EC seems to have acted in a partisan way. It is a regrettable decision,” he said.
The BJP welcomed the move. “Vesting the entire authority of the police force in a retired person, especially during an election, is untenable. We raised the issue with the EC . We are happy that a wrong has been set right,” BJP spokesperson Sisir Bajoria.
Purkayastha was recently summoned by the Enforcement Directorate in the Saradha chit fund probe. He did not speak on the issue and refused to take calls but officers close to him said the EC “decision seemed to be part of a political carpet-bombing to keep the state administration under pressure”. “It seems that politics is getting precedence over everything else, including years of professional work,” an officer said, adding that Purkayastha had not faced “any EC strictire in his four-decade career”.
During the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, too, the Bengal BJP accused Purkayastha of not allowing state police officers to “work freely” and urged the EC to remove him.