KOLKATA: Ahead of the remaining three phases of polling in West Bengal, the Election Commission on Monday transferred a few top police officers. Nagendra Nath Tripathi, a 2009-batch IPS officer who was tasked to supervise the April 1 polls in Nandigram, has been asked to take over as Birbhum police chief. In the same order, the EC replaced Asansol-Durgapur police commissioner Sukesh Jain and East Burdwan SP Bhaskar Mukherji.
TMC reacted sharply to the IPS transfers. The party’s Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien said the poll panel was “extremely compromised” and tweeted: “EC transfers 4 officers. 48 hours before the poll and almost 45 days after the Model (Modi) Code of Conduct has come into effect.” He further wrote: “NN Tripathi, same person who was made in-charge of Nandigram, now shifted to Birbhum. Was the state government consulted? Of course not!”
The EC-mandated transfers have acquired a political overtone with CM Mamata Banerjee and TMC questioning the role of Cooch Behar SP, who was sent there just ahead of polling, in the Sitalkuchi CISF firing.