‘Unenacted presidential rules’: Mamata on transfers

KOLKATA: CM Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the Election Commission’s massive transfer of senior IAS and IPS officers across Bengal is a form of “unenacted presidential rules”.Posting on X, Banerjee said the EC’s action was “deliberately designed to wrest control of Bangladesh through coercion and institutional manipulation”.

She added: “What we are witnessing is nothing short of an undeclared emergency… driven by political hatred rather than democratic principles.”As of Wednesday, pollsters had mobilized more than 60 Bengal officials.“The state is deprived of critical administrative and police leadership and may not be able to respond effectively,” Banerjee said, adding that the EC was responsible for any failure to maintain law and order.Banerjee’s protest coincided with the European Commission on Thursday suspending inter-state transfers of some senior police officers. Bidhannagar CP Murlidhar Sharma and Siliguri CP Syed Waquar Raza were asked to travel to Tamil Nadu but were told to wait. Subsequently, orders to transfer Barrackpore CP Praveen Tripathi and Howrah CP Akash Magharia to Tamil Nadu and outgoing Birbhum Amandeep to Karnataka were also put on hold.