West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday appointed the state’s chief electoral officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal as chief secretary of Bengal, the highest post in the state for a government employee.
Agarwal, a 1990-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the West Bengal cadre, replaces Dushyant Nariyala, a 1993-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, who was appointed to the post by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on March 15. Nariyala will be the new Resident Commissioner of Bengal in Delhi.
By Monday evening, Agarwal had taken over as chief secretary, the state government’s top bureaucrat charged with overseeing administration and coordinating various departments.
Agarwal is the second bureaucrat, closely associated with the electoral process, to be appointed to a key post in the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.
The state government on Saturday appointed retired IAS officer Subrata Gupta as advisor to Adhikari. Gupta, who retired from the service in May 2025, was appointed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as a special observer of the controversial Special Intensive Review (SIR) exercise which resulted in about 2.7 million voters being removed from the rolls under the judicial separation process (and were awaiting their fate even on Election Day) as well as 6.2 million who were removed in the SIR apart from the judicial separation category.
When the electoral process began in Bengal, the EC appointed Gupta as a special observer ahead of the Assembly elections. The Election Commission of India released him on May 7, three days after the poll results were announced.
Agarwal’s appointment on Monday evening coincided with the Prime Minister putting the final touches on the portfolios of the five ministers who were sworn in with him at Brigade Parade in Kolkata on May 9.
Agnimitra Paul, the first woman to be appointed in the state’s first BJP government, will head the municipal affairs and urban development department. In the previous Mamata Banerjee government, this portfolio was with Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim. Al-Hakim retained the Kolkata Port assembly seat.
Paul will also be in charge of the women and child development and social welfare department which was previously under Trinamool Congress’s Dr Shashi Banga, who lost her Shyampukur seat.
Former Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh, during whose tenure the BJP set a record by winning 19 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, has been appointed in-charge of the panchayat, rural development and animal husbandry departments. These were previously under TMC’s Pradip Majumdar and Swapan Debnath respectively. They both lost the ballot box.
Nisith Pramanik, the former Union Minister of State for Home Affairs who won the Assembly elections, has been given charge of the North Bengal Development Department as well as the Sports and Youth Affairs Department. These divisions were under the command of Udayan Guha and Arup Biswas respectively. They both lost their seats.
Dalit Matua community leader Ashok Kirtania became Food Department Minister. The portfolio was earlier owned by TMC’s Rathin Ghosh who won the Madhyamgram seat.
Tribal community leader Kshwaram Tudu has been appointed as the new Minister for Backward Classes Welfare of Bengal, a portfolio previously held by Polo Chik Barak, who was defeated. Tudu will also take care of minority affairs and madrasa education management, which was earlier under Mamata Banerjee.
In the two-phase elections, the BJP won 207 of the 294 seats in Bengal against the TMC’s 80 seats. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was among the 22 ministers who were unable to retain their seats.
