West Bengal assembly election 2021: Election Commission removes top cop before polls

Jag Mohan, a 1991-batch IPS officer, was handed over the charge in his place. The move came hours after a BJP delegation including MPs Swapan Dasgupta and Arjun Singh had met CEO Ariz Aftab, urging him to remove “biased" police officers from election duty.

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New Delhi: A day after announcing the dates for assembly elections in West Bengal, the Election Commission on Saturday (February 27) removed Jawed Shamim as the Additional Director General of Police (Law and order).

Jag Mohan was handed over the charge in his place. A 1991-batch IPS officer, Mohan will also be the state police nodal officer.

According to an order by chief electoral officer (CEO) of the state, Shamim, who is a 1995-batch IPS officer, will take place of Mohan as the DG Fire Services in the rank of ADG. He will also hold the charge of DG Civil Defence till further notice, the CEO's order said.

The move came hours after a BJP delegation including MPs Swapan Dasgupta and Arjun Singh had met CEO Ariz Aftab, urging him to remove “biased" police officers from election duty.

Shamim was made the state ADG (Law and order) earlier this month by the Mamata Banerjee government. Before that he served as Special Commissioner of Police (II) of the Kolkata Police.

"The way the police administration is functioning in West Bengal, it is evident that fair polling is not possible here. We can name a few police officers who are posted in the city. If they continue in their posts, free and fair elections are not possible," Dasgupta was quoted by PTI as saying after his meeting with the CEO.

He claimed he made several requests regarding this issue to Kolkata Police Commissioner Soumen, but no action was taken and that was the reason they approached the EC.

Meanwhile, the election commission has said that the assembly elections in the state will be conducted from March 27 to April 29 in eight phases. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.