Among the seven, three were posted in Murshidabad, two in South 24 Parganas and one each in West Midnapore and Jalpaiguri.
Kolkata: Using its powers under Section 13CC of the Representation of Peoples Act 1950, the Election Commission (EC) has suspended seven West Bengal government officials “with immediate effect” for their “serious misconduct, dereliction of duty and misuse of statutory powers” while performing as assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) in the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voters' list.
The EC has also directed state chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty to initiate disciplinary proceedings against them “by their respective cadre controlling authorities immediately without any delay and the Commission be apprised in this regard” in an order on Sunday night. Among the seven, three were posted in Murshidabad, two in South 24 Parganas and one each in West Midnapore and Jalpaiguri.
The suspended officials are Dr. Sefaur Rahaman, an assistant director of state agriculture department and AERO of Samserganj assembly constituency, Nitish Das, a revenue department officer at Farakka and AERO of Farakka AC and Sheikh Murshid Alam, ADA of Suti Block and AERO of Suti AC in Murshidabad; Satyajit Das, joint block development officer and Joydeep Kundu, FEO, who were AEROs of Canning Purbo AC in South 24 Parganas, Debashis Biswas, Jt. BDO and AERO of Debra AC in West Midnapore and Dalia Ray Choudhury, a women development officer at Maynaguri development block and AERO of Maynaguri AC in Jalpaiguri.
According to sources, the Farakka AERO came under the EC scanner for his apparent failure to lodge an FIR despite an order against local Trinamul Congress MLA Monirul Islam after he led a vandalism at his office on January 14. He also faced a mass resignation by the booth level officers following the discovery of many disputed voters’ names included in the list though they were not traced.
The Samsergunj AERO was on the radar for not attending the logical discrepancy cases and not verifying documents properly, sources revealed. Also, a BLO, who worked under him, faced an attack on his house for deleting 19 permanently absent voters' names since they have been living in Jharkhand. Later all those names were allegedly uploaded.
The Suti AERO reportedly approved many disputed documents as proof in logical discrepancy cases and did not go through copies of Form 7, which is about claims and objections.
