ECI orders suspension of 4 Kolkata police officers over chaos during Suvendu's nomination

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday directed the state government to suspend four officers of the Kolkata Police, including a divisional deputy commissioner, and initiate disciplinary proceedings against them over chaos outside a nomination centre, where senior Suvendu Adhikari and other BJP candidates filed their papers a day earlier amid clashes and alleged slogan-shouting by ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers.

"The ECI has directed the state government to suspend four officers and initiate disciplinary proceedings against them - Siddhartha Dutta, deputy commissioner-II of South Division, Priyankar Chakraborty, officer-in-charge (OC) of Alipore police station, Chandi Charan Banerjee, additional OC, and Saurabh Chatterjee, sergeant," said a senior EC official.

Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday accompanied Adhikari -- who is contesting against chief minister Mamata Banerjee from the Bhabanipur seat -- along with Rashbehari candidate Swapan Dasgupta, Ballygunge seat nominee Shatarupa, and Santosh Pathak from Chowringhee to the Alipore Survey Building, where they filed their papers. This came after Shah addressed a rally at Hazra, barely 300 metres from the chief minister's Kalighat residence.

Clashes broke out after local TMC workers gathered on both sides of the road and shouted anti-BJP slogans, allegedly targeting Adhikari, who defeated Banerjee in Nandigram in 2021. TMC supporters had allegedly installed loudspeakers around the Survey Building and played the party's campaign songs.