In his first press conference in Kolkata since assuming office last year, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Tuesday briefed the media on the Election Commission’s two-day review of the preparations for the West Bengal Assembly elections. Here are three takeaways from the CEC’s address and replies to questions.
There is no clarity on what happens to the 60 lakh electors whose eligibility is under adjudication if the elections are announced. With the Assembly elections expected to be announced within days, the CEC was asked to clarify if the poll body could go ahead with the announcement of the election schedule if the cases of 60 lakh electors were not disposed of by the judicial officers appointed on orders of the Supreme Court. As of Tuesday, the Supreme Court was informed that about 10 lakh of the cases have been disposed of, that is, either the electors have been found eligible and retained on the electoral roll or ineligible and removed from the rolls.
The CEC was also asked if those still under adjudication when polling is held will be allowed to vote through tendered votes. He did not provide a specific answer and said the process was being conducted as per the Supreme Court’s orders. The court on February 20 ordered judicial officers to decide on the cases and the EC to publish supplementary lists that would be considered a part of the final electoral roll published on February 28. So far, no supplementary list has been published.
Different treatment for Bengal
Pending cases led to different treatment for West Bengal, according to the CEC. Asked why the EC deployed micro-observers only in West Bengal during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the CEC said the reason was that many cases were found pending with the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). The EC deployed the micro-observers, who are Central government employees, to review decisions taken by the statutory authority — the EROs and Assistant EROs — only in West Bengal, while the SIR was being conducted in eight other states and three Union Territories at the same time. This was the first time that the Commission deployed micro-observers for an electoral roll revision anywhere in the country.
“In West Bengal, there were a lot of undecided cases at the level of Assistant Electoral Registration Officers and EROs, because of which micro-observers had to be appointed and the document verification had to be carried out in a stringent manner,” Kumar said.
Why this stands out is that the EC deployed micro-observers, around 8,100 in total, in a written instruction on December 19, 2025, just three days after the draft roll was published. The EROs and AEROs had until February 7 to conduct hearings and verify documents, as per the EC’s own schedule mentioned in a press note on December 16. The last date for hearings was then pushed to February 14 and the last date for disposing of claims and objections was February 21.
CEC flags ‘Partisan conduct’ of officers
West Bengal is the only state where the CEC highlighted zero tolerance towards “partisan” conduct by officers.
In the last month, the Commission, comprising the CEC and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, and accompanied by senior officers, have travelled to all five states and UT where elections are due, starting with Assam, then Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and finally Bengal this week. At the end of the review meetings, the CEC addressed a press conference, as is the practice for such pre-poll visits. In all five press conferences, the CEC made a nearly identical presentation about the preparations, new initiatives and instructions to enforcement agencies.
However, at Tuesday’s press conference, an additional slide was seen that was not included in the other four states and UT. Titled “Absolute non-partisan conduct of officers”, the slide presented by Kumar said there was a restriction on serving or retired government employees from participating in political activities. Three of the relevant rules from the West Bengal Services (Duties, Rights and Obligation of the Government Employees) Rules, 1980, All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968 and Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1965 were cited. Similar rules for State PSU and corporation employees were also flagged. “Those people will not work for any political party or any candidate,” the CEC said.
The CEC emphasising the rules and the need for non-partisan conduct of officials comes in the backdrop of the BJP’s allegations that the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government pressured Booth Level Officers and EROs, who are state government employees, not to delete names of ineligible electors during the SIR. The TMC, on the other hand, has accused the BJP of using the EC to target Bengal through the SIR, which has seen the deletion of over 1 crore electors.