3 min readNew DelhiMay 12, 2026 01:46 PM IST
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari took oath as the ninth Chief Minister of West Bengal on May 9, becoming the first from the party to hold the top post in the state. Soon after, the new administration began a bureaucratic reshuffle, reassigning 16 officers who were previously posted in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) during Mamata Banerjee’s tenure. Retired IAS officer Subrata Gupta was appointed adviser to Chief Minister Adhikari, while former Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal was named the state Chief Secretary.
Reacting to the appointments of Agarwal and Gupta, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi targeted what he described as a network between the BJP and the Election Commission. In a post on X, Gandhi said, “In the BJP-EC’s ‘chor bazaar’, the bigger the theft, the bigger the reward.”
BJP-EC के “चोर बाज़ार” में – जितनी बड़ी चोरी, उतना बड़ा इनाम। https://t.co/2lNC1oATW1
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 12, 2026
Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said the BJP-led West Bengal government has appointed Manoj Agarwal, a 1990-batch IAS officer who was responsible for overseeing the recent Assembly elections in the state as the chief election officer, as the new chief secretary.
Ramesh also pointed out that Subrata Gupta, another 1990-batch IAS officer who oversaw the SIR deletions in Bengal as the special roll observer, has been appointed chief advisor to the Chief Minister.
The BJP led West Bengal government has appointed the erstwhile Chief Election Officer, Mr. Manoj Agarwal (IAS 1990), responsible for overseeing the 2026 West Bengal assembly election as the new Chief Secretary to the Government of West Bengal. Similarly, Mr. Subrata Gupta (IAS…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) May 11, 2026
He said, “These appointments reflect the brazen collusion and connivance between the ECI and the BJP. There is no longer even an attempt to keep the collusion discrete or concealed.”
The Congress has alleged that the appointments are a testimony that the Election Commission of India was not impartial and acted exclusively to benefit the BJP.
It further claimed that an entire state went to election with 27 lakh people being disqualified from voting, and said this was carefully executed by the ECI to create an electoral advantage for the BJP.
Ramesh also said that Agarwal, a West Bengal cadre officer, helmed the EC-mandated Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal ahead of the Assembly polls, during which around 91 lakh voters were removed from the voter list.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal government on Sunday carried out a bureaucratic reshuffle, appointing two IAS officers and seven WBCS (executive) officers in the chief minister’s office (CMO), according to official notifications. Gupta was appointed advisor to the chief minister hours after he was sworn in, while Shantanu Bala was named his private secretary.
