New Delhi: Flaging the lack of “financial and administrative autonomy” available for West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), the Election Commission has directed the Chief Secretary of the state to create a separate election department, which is currently a subordinate office by removing it from the state government’s house and hill affairs department, and ensure that it is a dedicated budget head.A day after Manoj Kumar Aggarwal was nominated as the CEO of West Bengal on 02.04.2025, the state government made him a former Chief Minister, Additional Chief Secretary, Home and Hill Affairs (Election) Department.Referring to the “existing system”, where the CEO’s office should rely on a minor permanent advance from the State Finance Department, EC in a letter written to the Chief Secretary on 17 July, said that the CEO’s office has been classified as a subordinate branch of the State Home and Hill Affairs Department, which is led as a principal secretary-level officer.“In the light of the above and keeping in mind the needs of functional and institutional freedom”, the Commission directed the state government to create a separate election department, which completely separated from any other department of the state government. The pole panel said, “The Election Department should have a dedicated budget head. It will provide the CEOs the facility of full financial and administrative autonomy, as is required for effective and fair conduct of elections,” said the pole panel.The EC asked to hand over the appropriate financial powers to the CEO, which is at a conducive with the ACS/Principal Secretary/Secretary of other departments to be given to the CEO. “A separate financial advisor needs to post the CEO in the effective discharge of its official duties in the Election Department,” it said.With next year’s West Bengal Assembly Poll, the EC said that the state government would have to fill four vacant posts of additional/joint in the CEO office with consultation to ensure institutional preparations and spontaneous coordination.
