Bengal’s poll body chief Manoj Agarwal became one of the most visible faces of the high-voltage state elections — both in press conferences and behind the scenes. From uncertainties around SIR to the midnight press conference called to address the chaos outside strongrooms across Kolkata ahead of the results, Agarwal emerged as the Election Commission’s chief firefighter.
He faced tough volleys from the press and handled them with an aggressive swing of the bat. Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet were dismissed on May 7 after their term expired, a day after Agarwal’s meeting with Bengal Governor RN Ravi, where he presented the names of the newly elected legislators.
Now, with the elections done and dusted, Agarwal has landed in the eye of a fresh political storm.
Days after the BJP formed the government in West Bengal following Mamata Banerjee’s defeat, the administration moved to appoint him as the state’s chief secretary, with barely two months left before his retirement.
Calling the move “shameless”, the opposition All India Trinamool Congress said the appointment raised serious questions over the neutrality of the election process.
Agarwal’s appointment to the state’s top bureaucratic post came 48 hours after special election observer Subrata Gupta was named adviser to the chief minister.
The Trinamool Congress pointed out that Agarwal had originally been selected as West Bengal’s chief electoral officer by the Election Commission from a panel sent by the Mamata Banerjee-led government. Speculation over his new role grew on Monday after he was seen seated beside Chief Minister Adhikari, with outgoing chief secretary Dushyant Nariala on his left, during the BJP government’s cabinet meeting at Nabanna.
Smelling a conspiracy, Saket Gokhale, the national spokesperson of the All India Trinamool Congress, said, “Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Aggarwal who conducted the West Bengal election for the ECI has been appointed Chief Secretary of Bengal by the new BJP Govt. BJP & ECI are now being open about stealing the election. Are the courts BLIND or COMPLICIT? This is beyond shameless.”
The party had repeatedly clashed with Agarwal during the assembly polls, including in a public fallout on X with former finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya over “corruption” charges.
Now after the recent development, Bhattacharya on Monday took to X and wrote: “Manoj Agarwal @CEOWestBengal warns officers about ‘Lakshman Rekha’ and lectures them on ‘service rules’. But where was this moral sermon when, as per a CBI charge sheet, nearly 30 bank accounts and six plots worth crores — three in Dwarka and others in Gurgaon, Greater Noida, and Kolkata — were allegedly linked to your wife?
Questioning Agarwal’s “neutrality” during the election phase, Sagarika Ghose, a Trinamool Congress MP, wrote on X: “The so-called ‘neutral umpire’ is rewarded with the post of top bureaucrat of the BJP dispensation in Bengal. Does anyone still seriously believe the 2026 Bengal elections were free and fair? Outrageous and brazen.”The BJP defended the appointment, saying it had chosen the senior-most IAS officer and, unlike Mamata Banerjee, had followed service rules. Agarwal, a 1990-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, is set to retire on July 31 and is likely to be given a six-month extension, if reports are to be believed.
For Bengal, such extensions are nothing new. In the past, former chief secretaries Samar Ghosh, Hari Krishna Dwivedi, BP Gopalika and Manoj Pant all continued in office after turning 60.
– Ends
Published By:
Sayan Ganguly
Published On:
May 12, 2026 10:40 IST
