The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday named Sanjay Mukherjee as the new director general of police of West Bengal, the second time in two days that the poll body has changed the top cop in one of India’s largest states where Lok Sabha polls are expected to be fiercely fought.
Mukherjee is a 1989-batch IPS officer. His father, Arun Prasad Mukherjee, who died in 2020, was a decorated IPS officer who served as DGP West Bengal, director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, and, after retirement, adviser to Union home minister Indrajit Gupta in 1997, and governor of Mizoram between January and May 1998.
Mukherjee replaced 1988-batch officer Vivek Sahay, who was serving as director general (home guard) and was appointed as the new DGP on Monday afternoon after Rajeev Kumar, who was appointed by the state government in December last year, was removed from the post by ECI.
On Monday, ECI removed or transferred West Bengal’s DGP, the home secretaries of six states, and the head of the Mumbai corporation as part of its effort to ensure free and fair polls. ECI officials said the transferred officers were holding dual charges with one in the office of chief minister which would have potentially seemed to “compromise impartiality and neutrality” required during the electoral process.
The poll panel then asked the state chief secretary to provide a list of three eligible officers to replace Rajeev Kumar. The state sent the names of Sahay, Mukherjee and Rajesh Kumar.
{{/usCountry}}The poll panel then asked the state chief secretary to provide a list of three eligible officers to replace Rajeev Kumar. The state sent the names of Sahay, Mukherjee and Rajesh Kumar.
{{/usCountry}}The EC selected Sahay and his name was announced on Monday afternoon. His appointment came into effect immediately, chief secretary, BP Gopalika, wrote in an official order.
This was the second transfer for Rajeev Kumar, who served as commissioner of Kolkata Police from February 2016 to February 2019. He was removed from the post in April 2016 by ECI because of assembly elections.The government reinstated him in May 2016.
During the 2021 assembly polls, when Sahay was in charge of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s security, ECI suspended him following an incident in which she suffered injury in her left leg during a campaign at Nandigram in East Midnapore. Banerjee alleged it was a “planned attack”.
Sahay was reinstated to the post after the elections.
A senior state government official said on condition of anonymity that ECI probably replaced Sahay because he was supposed to retire in May, in the middle of seven-phase polls.
The Bengal government did not make any statement on the EC’s new order.
West Bengal, with 42 seats, is tipped to witness a fierce battle between the ruling Trinamool Congress, which is looking to protect its citadel, and the BJP, which is looking to expand on the back of its best-ever performance of 18 seats in 2019.