Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticises recent West Bengal government appointments that include former election officials, alleging political collusion. Gandhi targets the appointments of Manoj Agarwal, an erstwhile chief election officer, as the new West Bengal chief secretary, and Subrata Gupta as chief advisor to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. In a post on X, Gandhi describes the arrangement using the phrase “BJP-EC’s ‘chor bazaar’,” asserting that “the bigger the theft, the bigger the reward.”
Congress leaders frame the appointments as evidence of “brazen collusion and connivance” between the Election Commission and the BJP-led government. The claim is that there is no effort to keep any link between election oversight and subsequent postings discreet or concealed. In related remarks, Jairam Ramesh says the appointments reflect collusion rather than coincidence. The criticism centres on Agarwal’s role as the officer responsible for overseeing recent Assembly elections in West Bengal and the subsequent senior administrative positions he is said to hold in the state government.
