The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday formally appointed returning officers (RO) for all 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal. For the first time, all 294 constituencies have sub-divisional level officers at magistrate level or above, bringing West Bengal in line with the rest of India. So far, 152 of the 294 assembly constituencies in Bengal have been manned by officers below the rank of SDM, a senior Election Commission of India (ECI) official said.
The SDM members who will now serve as regional representatives in the upcoming elections were previously serving and are now serving as Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) during the Special Intensive Review (SIR) process.
The West Bengal government had earlier proposed Group B and Group C officials to take up the crucial roles of regional office and electoral registration officers, who decide valid nomination papers, resolve disputes over eligibility of voters and ultimately declare election results. The committee had asked for senior officers of Group A – IAS rank or equivalent officers at the district level.
The dispute over the seniority of the RO was one thread of a much larger legal battle fought in the Supreme Court under a writ petition (Mustari Bannu v. Election Commission of India) and related petitions, including those filed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself and TMC MPs Derek O’Brien and Dhola Sen, all challenging the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal launched on November 4, 2025. The issue of seniority of officers came to a head during the hearing in which It was held by the Supreme Court on February 20, 2026 before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, when the CEC told the court that Bengal had not provided Group A officers of the appropriate rank specifically to conduct the SIR process — particularly as Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant EROs (AEROs), who are required to pass quasi-judicial orders determining which voters are to remain in the list and which are to be deleted. These are not general electoral duty positions – ERO staff during the SIR have the power to include or exclude voters from the electoral roll, making their seniority and legal authority directly linked to who is eligible to vote.
Importantly, the same SDM rank officer who acts as ERO during the SIR process is also appointed as RO for the same or another Assembly constituency during the same election. This means that the dispute over seniority over SIR officers and the dispute over seniority over registration offices were not two separate issues but the same issue in two phases of the same electoral cycle. The court recorded that the state was obliged to provide Group A officers performing the duties of SDMs specifically for this SIR and electoral work. Finding that it was “almost impossible to determine the status and rank of officials deployed by the state”, and given the complete lack of trust between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission of India over the Special Issue Resolution (SIR) process, the court ordered the deployment of judicial officers – first from the Calcutta High Court and later from Odisha and Jharkhand – to perform the functions of Electoral Roll Officer (ERO) in place of state officials.
On Tuesday, the Bangladesh Home Ministry sent the Election Commission of India a list of names of officers with the required seniority.
The current term of the West Bengal Assembly ends on May 7. Elections are expected to be held in April and May. With polling stations officially in place in all electoral districts, the Independent Electoral Commission was able to overcome the last major administrative hurdle before announcing the polling dates.
So far, there has been no fresh comment on this RO appointment from the West Bengal government or TMC leaders.
