Summary of this article
- Manoj Agarwal, who served as West Bengal's CEO, was appointed Chief Secretary by the BJP government following its election victory.
- He famously oversaw the SIR exercise, which removed 91 lakh voters—a move fiercely opposed by the previous TMC regime.
- The appointment signals the new administration's intent to reward officials who managed the election process and implement central policies.
In a significant bureaucratic reshuffle, the Suvendu Adhikari-led BJP government on Monday appointed Manoj Kumar Agarwal as the new Chief Secretary of West Bengal. Agarwal, who until this appointment served as the state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), was the official who oversaw the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls ahead of the recently concluded Assembly elections, which the BJP won in a landslide.
The appointment was formalized through an order issued by the state's Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms. "The Governor is pleased to appoint Shri Manoj Kumar Agarwal, IAS (WB:1990), Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal... as Chief Secretary to the Government of West Bengal until further order(s)," the official notification read.
Agarwal is a 1990-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the West Bengal cadre and an alumnus of IIT Kanpur. He succeeds Dushyant Nariala, a 1993-batch IAS officer who was appointed to the position by the Election Commission of India in mid-March. Nariala has been transferred to New Delhi to serve as the Principal Resident Commissioner for the state.
Agarwal’s tenure as CEO placed him at the center of one of the most heated political battles in recent state history. He helmed the Election Commission-mandated Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, an exercise that resulted in the removal of approximately 91 lakh names from the voter list.
While the BJP hailed the exercise as a long-overdue "electoral roll clean-up" necessary to remove duplicate and fake voters, the previous Trinamool Congress (TMC) government, led by Mamata Banerjee, denounced it as a calculated move to disenfranchise legitimate voters at the behest of the BJP. The TMC had previously accused Agarwal of "partisan conduct" and bias towards the BJP.
Despite the political firestorm, Agarwal was praised by the Election Commission for overseeing a peaceful polling process. The 2026 West Bengal elections were noted for a lack of the traditional electoral violence and saw a high voter turnout, a feat attributed largely to the administrative handling by Agarwal and his team, which included Special Roll Observer Subrata Gupta.
Agarwal’s appointment marks the second major bureaucratic move by the new administration involving officials tied to the SIR exercise. Just two days prior, retired IAS officer Subrata Gupta, who served as the ECI’s Special Roll Observer during the revision, was appointed as the advisor to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
Sources indicate that the new government is moving quickly to align the state administration with the Centre. Following his first cabinet meeting at Nabanna on Monday, CM Adhikari announced the implementation of central schemes previously blocked by the TMC government, including the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme and the Jal Jeevan Mission.
Although Agarwal is scheduled to retire on July 31, 2026, administrative sources suggest he is almost certain to receive an extension, underscoring the BJP government's confidence in his ability to steer key public policies.
The appointment of two key figures from the election process to the highest echelons of state governance is likely to trigger fresh political debate, with the TMC expected to question the neutrality of officials who have now joined the political administration they helped bring to power.
