Manoj Kumar Agarwal appointed West Bengal Chief Secretary, raising political concerns over the integrity of recent elections.

Kolkata: The West Bengal government on Monday appointed the state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal as the next Chief Secretary. "The

Manoj Agarwal is a 1990-batch IAS officer belonging to the West Bengal cadre. He helmed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls conducted ahead of the now-concluded Assembly polls in West Bengal.

According to an order issued by the Governor, Agarwal, who was previously the state CEO and ex officio Additional Chief Secretary of the Home and Hill Affairs (Election) Department, has been appointed Chief Secretary to the state government.

The TMC has attacked the BJP government in West Bengal for appointing former chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal as chief secretary. The move has triggered questions over poll neutrality ahead of the Falta bypoll.

In a post on X, Trinamool's Saket Gokhale said the move showed BJP and the ECI were "being open about stealing the election" and questioned whether the courts were "blind or complicit".