Kolkata: In a major administrative reshuffle, West Bengal’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal has been appointed as the Chief Secretary of the newly formed BJP government led by Suvendu Adhikari. The official order was released on Monday.

Agarwal, a 1990-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, recently oversaw the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. This high-profile operation resulted in the removal of approximately 91 lakh names from the state’s electoral rolls prior to the assembly elections.

The incumbent Chief Secretary, Dushyant Nariala (1993-batch IAS), has been reassigned as the Principal Resident Commissioner in New Delhi. Nariala had previously been appointed to the top bureaucratic post by the Election Commission, replacing Nandini Chakravorty during the election period.

The transition comes in the wake of a historic political shift in West Bengal, where the BJP secured its first-ever victory in the state. The party won 207 seats in the 294-member assembly, ending the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) long-standing rule and reducing them to 80 seats.

PTI