3 min readKolkataJan 30, 2026 06:15 AM IST
The West Bengal government on Thursday sought changes in the list of central observers sent by the Election Commission and proposed alternative names for nine of the 15 IAS officers selected by the poll panel.
This after the Election Commission in a rare move named West Bengal Home Secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena as one of the central observers for the Assembly elections in other states.
Apart from West Bengal, polls are scheduled this year in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry.
The EC asked Meena and other officials to attend the meeting of central observers scheduled for February 5 and 6, and warned them of disciplinary actions if they failed to attend.
In a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, the EC wrote, “The officer(s) may be informed that unauthorised absence from the Briefing Meeting shall be viewed very seriously by the Commission and may lead to initiation of disciplinary proceedings against the officer(s) concerned.”
“You are requested to ensure the service of this Briefing Meeting notice on the officer(s) within 24 hours, immediately under proper acknowledgement, through any available means/resources. It is further requested that a confirmation report in writing, along with an acknowledgement of the officers) concerned, may be sent through the email of the undersigned for the perusal of the Commission,” it added.
According to a section of state government officials, the EC normally excludes the home secretary and the chief secretary as central observers, an action which they said could lead to another confrontation with the TMC government in West Bengal.
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However, sources in the EC denied such allegations. “Multiple times we asked to give names of IAS and IPS officers from 1996 batches to 2016 batches, but the state government didn’t give. So, we chose names randomly,” a senior EC official said.
The official added that the EC doesn’t name additional chief secretary-rank officers as observers, and that Jagdish Prasad Meena is not an Additional Chief Secretary. He was recently given additional charge of the Home Secretary.
In addition to Meena, the Commission named Asvini Kumar Yadav, Salim P B, Avanindra Singh, Saumitra Mohan, Smaraki Mahapatra, Archana, Sanjay Bansal, P Mohan Gandhi, Shubhanjan Das, P Ulaganathan, Saurav Pahari, Rachna Bhagat, Ritendra Narayan Basu Roy Choudhury, and Rajanvir Singh Kapur.
On the other hand, IPS officers who were called are Bharat Lal Meena, Rajesh Kumar Yadav, Praveen Kumar Tripathi, Rishikesh Meena, Sabya Sachi Raman Mishra, Sunil Kumar Choudhary, Akhilesh Kumar Chaturvedi, Sukesh Kumar Jain, Anoop Jaiswal, and Sudheer Kumar Neelakantam.
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In a letter to the EC, the West Bengal government, while asking to relieve nine officers, including the Home Secretary, from the central observer’s duties, stated that they are engaged in “important duty of the state government”.
