The Trinamul Congress on Thursday alleged that the transfer of four district magistrates in West Bengal by the EC ahead of the Lok Sabha elections vindicates its stand that the BJP was using the poll panel after facing people’s rejection in the previous state elections.

The EC on Thursday shunted out non-cadre district magistrates and police superintendents of several states on grounds that the posts were meant for IAS and IPS officers respectively. The list included DMs of Purba Medinipur, Jhargram, Purba Bardhaman and Birbhum districts in West Bengal.

Previously, on March 19, the poll panel appointed Sanjoy Mukherjee as the state’s director general of police after removing the earlier appointee Vivek Sahay in less than 24 hours. The West Bengal government had appointed Sahay to that post following an EC direction, after transferring the state’s top cop Rajiv Kumar to a “non-election” related post.

Senior TMC leader and minister Chandrima Bhattacharya stated in a press meet here that such steps by the EC, “at the behest of BJP”, betrays the hollowness of the saffron party’s assertion to better the tally of 18 seats it won in 2019.

Bhattacharya asked, “Why is the BJP pushing for so many transfers after (poll) date announcement, if it is so confident of victory? Why can't the BJP leave our officers out from its ‘Mission Bengal’ strategy?” On the alleged use of central agencies against opposition parties by the BJP-led Centre, she claimed, “There has been a four-fold increase in ED cases since 2020 and 95 per cent of those cases were directed against the opposition.” Bhattacharya also used the opportunity to question the overall success rate of the agencies in probing those cases.

Her party colleague and former TMC MP Santanu Sen said “175 hours” have passed after party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee challenged BJP leaders to back their claim of the Centre not withholding MGNREGS and Awas Yojana funds in the past two years.

“The BJP has shied away from a public debate on the issue,” Sen said.

Bhattacharya also wondered why the BJP has so far not named candidates in the state, which comprises 42 Lok Sabha seats, apart from its first list of 19 nominees.

“Despite its tall claims, this shows how disintegrated the BJP actually is,” she added. PTI SUS NN

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