Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar moves fast — Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, DGP and Kolkata Police Commissioner all replaced in a sweeping pre-poll purge of officers considered loyal to Trinamool Congress.
By NIRENDRA DEV
Kolkata, March 16, 2026 — Within hours of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announcing West Bengal poll dates on Sunday and pledging violence-free elections, the Election Commission moved with unusual speed — removing Mamata Banerjee’s most trusted bureaucrats and senior police officers in a sweeping administrative overhaul that signals the EC means business this time.
The bureaucratic axe falls first
The first to go were the state’s two most senior civil servants. Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty — a 1994-batch IAS officer and West Bengal’s first woman chief secretary, appointed only on December 31 last year — and state Home Secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena were transferred out with immediate effect.
Both were widely considered close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Chakraborty had come under sharp scrutiny after she was present alongside Banerjee and other senior bureaucrats during the Enforcement Directorate’s search operation at the I-PAC office in Kolkata — a move that drew fierce criticism from BJP and former bureaucrats as a breach of administrative protocol.
In a letter to the outgoing Chief Secretary, the EC was unambiguous: the transferred officers “shall not be posted in any election-related position” until polls conclude. The Commission demanded a compliance report confirming the joining of their replacements by 3 pm on Monday, March 16.
Dushyant Nariala, a 1993-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre currently serving as Additional Chief Secretary for the North Bengal Development Department, was named the new Chief Secretary. Sanghamitra Ghosh, a 1997-batch IAS officer who has served as Principal Secretary for Women & Child Development, Mission Director for the National Health Mission, and District Magistrate in Howrah and South 24 Parganas, was appointed the new Home Secretary.
Then the police leadership is dismantled
The EC did not stop at the civil bureaucracy. By Monday, a near-complete replacement of Bengal’s top police command was ordered.
Acting Director General of Police Peeyush Pandey was replaced by Siddh Nath Gupta, a 1992-batch IPS officer. Kolkata Police Commissioner Supratim Sarkar was replaced by Ajay Kumar Nand, a 1996-batch IPS officer. Both Pandey and Sarkar had been appointed as recently as January 30 — making their tenures barely six weeks long.
Director General, Law & Order, Vineet Kumar Goyal — a former Kolkata Police Commissioner who had been removed from that post following controversy over the RG Kar Medical College rape and murder case in August 2024 — was also removed. He was replaced by Ajay Mukud Ranade, a 1995-batch IPS officer, appointed as Additional Director General, Law & Order. Additionally, Natarajan Ramesh Babu, a 1991-batch IPS officer, was posted as Director General, Correctional Services.
BJP welcomes, TMC confrontation deepens
Union Minister and BJP leader Sukanta Majumdar welcomed the transfers without reservation. “These officers are very biased. It is right to remove them. The Election Commission did the right thing,” he said. “Would it be right to conduct elections by keeping officers who go to obstruct ED raids? Whoever Mamata Banerjee appoints as DGP or Chief Secretary, she uses them as members of her party. These are TMC’s administrative friends.”
The TMC government has not yet issued a formal response, but the scale and speed of the EC’s intervention makes a confrontation difficult to avoid. The replacement of an entire chain of command — Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, DGP, Kolkata Police Commissioner and Director General Law & Order — within 24 hours of poll notification is without recent precedent in any state election cycle.
For CEC Gyanesh Kumar, whose “Bengal Operations” have now begun in earnest, Sunday’s press conference promise of peaceful and violence-free polls has been backed immediately by action. Whether the new officials can hold that line against a ruling apparatus that has governed Bengal for 15 years — and knows every lever of administrative power — remains the central question of the 2026 West Bengal election.
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