Bengal: ECI suspends 4 election officials for 'irregularities'

Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday directed the Bengal Chief Secretary to place under suspension four election officials from East Midnapore and South 24-Parganas for irregularities in the registration of names in the voter list.

The Commission has further directed for lodging FIRs against these erring Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AERO) for their actions, which potentially amount to criminal misconduct. An FIR shall also be lodged against the casual Data Entry Operator Surajit Halder.

The officers, who according to the poll panel shall be placed under suspension with immediate effect and disciplinary proceedings being initiated against them without delay are Debottam Dutta Chowdhury and Tathagata Mondal, ERO of 137 Baruipur Purba Assembly Constituency and AERO of the same constituency, respectively of South 24-Parganas district. Biplab Sarkar and Sudipta Das, ERO and AERO of 26 Moyna EC of East Midnapore are also in the suspension list of the poll body.

The secretary of ECI in a communique to the Chief Secretary has stated that the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer had forwarded a report on July 29 through an e-mail informing the" wrongful addition of names in the electoral rolls by these four EROs and AEROs".

"It has been reported that the said officers have not only failed to perform duty as ERO and AERO while disposing off the applications but also violated the policy of data security while sharing their log in credentials of the electoral roll database with unauthorised persons,” the ECI’s letter stated.