A day after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee questioned propriety of appointing a Special Police Observer for Bengal who had earlier been seen attending an RSS programme in uniform, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday replaced the senior IPS officer with a new one.
Though the ECI would not provide reasons it removed former Director General of BSF KK Sharma as the Special Police Observer for Bengal. Vivek Dubey 1981 batch IPS officer will supervise the Lok Sabha election in the State in place of Sharma, Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Basu said.
He quoted “specific orders” from the ECI but said no specific reason had been offered for the new move. Banerjee had on Wednesday cited photographs showing how in 2018 Sharma had joined an RSS-sponsored programme in police uniform.
Apart from police observers the ECI has also appointed 44 expenditure observers to monitor the spending of various political parties, sources said.
Meanwhile, the Kolkata Police on Thursday recovered Rs 35 lakh from a person at Brabourne Road in North Kolkata. Identified as PK Sharma from Odisha the accused was taken into custody. The Thursday’s recovery takes the total recovery of unexplained cash to about 11 corein the past two weeks: highest ever in Bengal, sources said.