New Delhi: Following the announcement of the poll schedule for the five upcoming assembly elections, the Election Commission of India’s move to transfer poll-bound West Bengal’s top bureaucracy and police officers has met with criticism from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said in a letter to the Election Commission that while the poll body has the authority to transfer officers during the election period, its actions are “arbitrary and unprecedented”. She also wrote that the “large-scale transfer of senior officials, without consultation, reason or any allegation of misconduct, seriously disrupts administration and raises questions about institutional neutrality”.Escalating her confrontation with the poll body since the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, where 60 lakh voters are in limbo, Banerjee on Friday (March 20) accused the Election Commission of being the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s “parrot” and said that the Narendra Modi-led Union government was imposing “President’s Rule which is not even unannounced”, in West Bengal.Former chief election commissioners The Wire spoke to said that while the Election Commission has the authority to conduct bureaucratic reshuffles during the election period, a consultative process is conventionally involved. This typically includes setting up a panel of officers recommended by the state government before such changes are put into effect.Meanwhile, TMC Member of Parliament and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, who filed a PIL in Calcutta High Court against the Election Commission’s actions on Friday, told The Wire that the Election Commission can conduct elections, but it cannot “run the state government”.Consultation conventionFormer chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat said that according to convention, if there is any complaint or material against an officer involved in the election process, then the Election Commission decides to take cognisance and remove them.“Once this decision is made, the Election Commission asks the state government to suggest a panel of three eligible officers to fill in those posts. And out of those, the Election Commission picks and chooses the one most suitable for the job, and directs the state government to appoint them,” he said.Former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi said the Election Commission can order a reshuffle and the process is consultative, including setting up a “panel” for each officer sought to be transferred. However, the commission has, in the past, also acted on its own, without consultation.“While the number of transfers [in West Bengal] may be on the larger side, by convention, this is not new,” said Quraishi.Quraishi recalled an instance before polls in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, when the Election Commission received information that money was being distributed in the middle of the night, on the eve of the polls.“The police commissioner was informed but no action was taken. We [the Election Commission] immediately sent a message to the chief secretary that this person should be removed within half an hour. That order was issued by the Election Commission itself, because there was no time for consultation then,” he said.However, Quraishi said that the convention is to ask for a panel of names for the Election Commission to choose a replacement from.“If those names are not found suitable, another panel of names comes from the state government. Consultation is involved, but under some circumstances, such transfers can take place even without asking for a panel,” he said.According to Rawat, conventionally, such unilateral transfers are rare.“It is done in consultation with the state government because the Election Commission may not know the officers the state government has, their antecedents. The new incumbent should not be suffering from infirmities and, therefore, you have to call for a panel with their records and antecedents so that you can make up your mind,” he said.What the law saysThe Election Commission derives its powers from Article 324 of the Constitution, which empowers the poll body the “superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections to Parliament and to the Legislature of every State and of elections to the offices of President and Vice-President.”Further, Section 13CC of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 provides that during the election period, all officers concerned with election tasks are deemed to be on deputation to the Election Commission. “Chief Electoral Officers, District Election Officers, etc., [are] deemed to be on deputation to Election Commission,” it says.The officers referred to in this Part and any other officer or staff employed in connection with the preparation, revision and correction of the electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections shall be deemed to be on deputation to the Election Commission for the period during which they are so employed and such officers and staff shall, during that period, be subject to the control, superintendence and discipline of the Election Commission.Section 28A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 adds that the “returning officer, assistant returning officer, presiding officer, polling officer and any other officer appointed under this Part, and any police officer designated for the time being by the State Government, for the conduct of any election shall be deemed to be on deputation to the Election Commission” during the election period.‘Unilateral’ actions and ‘President’s Rule’Banerjee in her letter sent to the Election Commission on March 19, acknowledged the powers of the poll body while adding that, in four days, the commission “unfortunately and unilaterally” replaced several senior officers of the state, including the Chief Secretary, the Secretary (Home and Hill Affairs), the Director General and Inspector General of Police as well as other senior police and civil officers. “Several District Magistrates-cum-DEOs, Superintendents of Police and Commissioners of Police have also been transferred and many senior officers like Principal Secretaries of Food, PWD have been deployed on observers’ duty, causing serious disruption to the administration,” she wrote.“These large scale transfers have been affected immediately following the announcement of elections, without any cogent reasons and in the absence of any allegation of violation of electoral rules of the Model Code of Conduct by the concerned officers,” she wrote.The top officers reshuffled include chief secretary Nandini Chakraborty, replaced with Dushyant Nariala; home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena, replaced with Sanghamitra Ghosh; Siddh Nath Gupta appointed as Director General and Inspector General of Police (in-charge); Natarajan Ramesh Babu the new Director General of Correctional Services,; Ajay Mukund Ranade as Additional Director General and IGP (Law and Order); Ajay Kumar Nand as Commissioner of Kolkata Police, among others.On Friday, while releasing her party’s poll manifesto, Banerjee said the scale of the bureaucratic reshuffle, which involed bringing in officers from other states, might hamper the government’s development work.“If anything happens after this, BJP government will be responsible because the EC is the BJP government’s parrot,” she said.“Our Bengal cadre officers, IAS or IPS, when they take charge, according to Sarkaria Commission recommendations, they work for the state. But today if all Bengal’s officers are taken away who will see the people of Bengal? It is not even unannounced but announced President’s Rule,” she said.In comparison to the large-scale transfers in West Bengal where over 50 officers have been transferred, in the other poll bound states, the Election Commission has reshuffled fewer roles. Reshuffles have affected ten senior officers in Assam, five in Kerala and four in Tamil Nadu.The TMC walked out of Rajya Sabha in protest against the Election Commission’s actions on Monday, while Union parliamentary minister Kiren Rijiju accused the opposition of attacking constitutional bodies, and said that the government had nothing to do with it.A strike ‘against federalism’, says TMCTMC’s Banerjee, who has approached the high court against the Election Commission’s actions, said to The Wire that the poll body’s actions were contradictory. He referred to six IAS officers sent to Tamil Nadu as central observers, along with over a dozen police officers who have been sent to other states.“The [Election Commission’s] order said that these persons [from West Bengal] will not be attached to any election work, but the same persons were sent to different states for election, which is contradictory. The Election Commission will supervise the election – it cannot run the government,” said Banerjee.“The powers of the Election Commission are wide, but subject to the rule of law and constitutional provisions. This exercise of the Election Commission hits the basic structure of federalism.”