The former Calcutta High Court Chief Justice, TS Sivagnanam, who had been heading an Appellate Tribunal handling the cases of voters whose names were deleted in the judicial adjudication process of the special intensive revision in West Bengal, had resigned from that chair.
Justice Sivagnanam (retired) was also heading the three-member panel of retired judges of Calcutta High Court constituted by the Supreme Court to oversee the process of how the Appellate Tribunal constituted for the purpose would operate.
In his resignation letter, Justice Sivagnanam (retired) had cited personal reasons behind his decision.
In another development, with West Bengal Assembly elections being over and the results being declared on May 4, except for Falta Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district, the Election Commission of India had relieved the special poll observer, Subrata Gupta, and the special police observer, NK Mishra, who was appointed by the Commission for the recently concluded polls in the state.
Both have been issued relief letters from their duties by the Commission on Thursday, confirmed an insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal.
The West Bengal Assembly elections of 2026 have been remarkable from various viewpoints, such as the peaceful polling in contrast to the state's history of electoral violence and an unprecedented voting percentage.
The Commission had already acknowledged the role of three officers behind this achievement, by three officials in the Chief Electoral Officer's office, who had discreetly overseen all operations as behind-the-scenes coordinators from start to finish.
While one of them is the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, the other two are Gupta and Mishra.
On Thursday, the Election Commission of India had also lifted the Model Code of Conduct for West Bengal except for the Falta Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district in the state, where re-polling will be conducted on May 21, and the results will be declared on May 24.
In fact, the counting of votes on May 4 was conducted for 293 of 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal except Falta. The Election Commission of India decided to conduct re-polling for the entire Falta, which went for polls in the second phase of the two-phase West Bengal Assembly elections on April 29, following complaints of massive electoral malpractices on the polling day.
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