Kolkata, April 6 – The Election Commission of India (ECI) has suspended the Inspector-in-Charge (IC) of the Naihati police station, who is under the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, for allegedly taking the Chairman of the Naihati Municipality, a political leader, to the SDO office during the nomination process. This action comes after BJP leader Arjun Singh, a former Lok Sabha member from the Barrackpore constituency, highlighted the incident and shared a video on social media, urging the poll panel to take action.
In a post, Singh wrote, “The @ECISVEEP is trying very hard to ensure that the @WBPolice performs in a very impartial manner, but habit is a habit. Ashok Chatterjee, the Chairman of Naihati Municipality and a leader of @AITCofficial in Naihati, gets down from a police vehicle at the SDO office in Barrackpore.”
According to him, the vehicle is used by the Naihati police station under the Barrackpore City Police.
He further wrote, “Mr Chatterjee was there to attend the nomination process of the @AITCofficial candidate from Naihati. I would like to draw the attention of the office of @ECISVEEP and @CEOWestBengal about the misuse of a police vehicle by TMC leaders and take necessary action.”
This is not the first instance of the ECI suspending police officers in West Bengal for alleged dereliction of duty during Assembly elections.
Four police personnel of Kolkata Police were recently suspended following disruption of law and order in the aftermath of unrest during a roadshow ahead of the filing of BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari’s nomination in the presence of Home Minister Shah in the Bhabanipur constituency last week.
Earlier, the ECI had also suspended the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of the Kasba police station over the omission of Sona Pappu alias Biswajit Poddar's name from the list of active criminals.
Ahead of the Assembly polls, the Commission had directed the state and Kolkata Police to prepare a list of absconding and declared criminals and had assigned responsibilities to OCs of all police stations in this regard. The OC of Kasba police station was suspended for not complying with these directions.