Bengal poll team rejigged ahead of EC full bench visit

Kolkata: The Bengal government appointed two senior IAS officers — Smaraki Mahapatra and Sanghamitra Ghosh — as joint chief electoral officer and additional chief electoral officer on Tuesday, a day before EC’s full bench is expected to reach the city to review the state’s poll preparedness.
Ghosh, a 1997-batch IAS officer, is currently posted as secretary of women and child welfare department.Mahapatra, a 2002-batch officer, is working as finance secretary with additional responsibility as director of West Bengal Highway Development Corporation. Both have been asked to immediately assume their new offices. “They will have to be present during the visit of the EC bench,” a source said.
The full EC bench — comprising chief election commissioner Sunil Arora and election commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajeev Kumar — is expected to arrive on Wednesday evening and hold a meeting with chief electoral officer (CEO) Ariz Aftab and ADG (law and order) Gyanwant Singh who is the state police nodal officer. “They will take stock of the law and order situation in Bengal,” a senior commission official said.
Deputy election commissioner and Bengal in-charge Sudip Jain had expressed concern over the non-execution of non-bailable arrest warrants (NBW). An officer said in the past four days, 10,000 of the pending 50,000 NBWs had been executed.
CEO Aftab on Tuesday also met IG (CRPF) P K Singh and IGP (BSF) A K Singh on availability and movement of the forces before and during the elections. He asked them to be present during the meeting with the EC.
“In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the total number of booths were 77,247 across 52,277 locations. This time, the number of booths has increased to 1,01,733 because of Covid. To manage these additional polling booths, more forces are required. It is expected that central force deployment will be increased by 30% compared to the 2019 polls,” an official said.
“Many school buildings were damaged during Amphan and the commission asked us to make these places ready for polls. There will be no shortage of place as far as the polling stations are concerned,” the official said.
Besides meeting the CEO and state nodal officer, the EC will hold separate meetings with political parties, officials of election-related regulatory agencies, DMs and SPs on Thursday. On Friday, the full bench will hold a meeting with the chief secretary, home secretary, DGP and other senior officials before leaving the city late in the afternoon.