The Bengal government on Monday appointed new superintendents of police in Purulia, Jalpaiguri and Murshidabad districts and changed the postings of around 20 other cops.

This is the highest number of changes in the police in the recent past. The shuffle assumes significance as panchayat polls are slated to be held next year.

The BJP had won six out of nine Assembly seats in Purulia district last year. Jalpaiguri is among BJP strongholds in north Bengal. Sunil Bansal, the BJP national general secretary and co-observer for Bengal, had held interactions with party leaders of Darjeeling, Siliguri and Jalpaiguri a week ago as a part of a plan to strengthen the organisation through a series of meetings across Bengal ahead of the polls.

“The chief minister wants to improve law and order in some of these districts so that there are no disruptive activities in December ahead of the polls,” said a Trinamul Congress functionary in Calcutta.

Senior police officers, however, maintained the shuffle was purely administrative. Surinder Singh, who was earlier with the state’s intelligence branch, has been made the new police chief of Murshidabad.

Avijit Banerjee has been shifted out of the Ranaghat police district and is made the new Purulia police superintendent.

Jalpaiguri’s police chief would be Biswajit Mahato.

He moved out of Bidhannagar police commissionerate. K. Sabari Raj Kumar, who was the superintendent of police of Murshidabad, has been appointed in Howrah as the deputy commissioner of police, central zone.

GNLF to contest rural polls

The Gorkha National Liberation Front has decided to participate in the upcoming panchayat elections in the Darjeeling hills, a decision which runs contrary to the party’s position when it was in power.

On Sunday, the GNLF held a central committee meeting where it decided to contest the two-tier panchayat elections.