Election Commission of India (ECI) appoints Neelam Meena as West Bengal CEO

KOLKATA: The Election Commission of India (ECI), on Monday, announced the appointment of Neelam Meena, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the West Bengal cadre of the 1998 batch, as the new Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal.

The erstwhile CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, is currently the state's Chief Secretary.

He was appointed to that position soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led new state Cabinet under the leadership of the state's ninth Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari, took charge.

Soon after that, the West Bengal government sent a panel of three IAS officers of the state cadre to the ECI for selecting one of them as Agarwal's successor.

Of the three IAS officers whose names were sent to the ECI, Meena, then the Principal Secretary to the Department of Consumer Affairs, was the senior-most.

The names of the two other IAS officers sent to the ECI by the state government were Tanmay Chakrabarty (2006 batch) and Moumita Godara Basu (2007 batch).

So, in a way, Meena's appointment as the new CEO of West Bengal was more or less expected. (IANS)

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