A system for daily oversight of general observers, police, and expenditure observers appointed for the upcoming two-phase Assembly polls in West Bengal has been introduced by the Election Commission of India (ECI). A special monitoring cell led by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, will be established to supervise these observers and report daily to the ECI headquarters in New Delhi. West Bengal will have 294 general observers, one for each Assembly constituency, along with 84 police observers and 100 expenditure observers, making the system more transparent and foolproof.
The move aligns with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s commitment to ensuring free, fair, and violence-free elections in West Bengal. By subjecting the ECI-appointed observers to daily scrutiny, the ECI aims to enhance transparency and dispel concerns that its surveillance is limited to state government officials. Additionally, the ECI has appointed West Bengal Home Secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena as a central observer for Tamil Nadu, while two other departmental secretaries, Antara Acharya and Parvez Ahmed Siddique, have been chosen as central observers for other poll-bound states.
