New Delhi: IAS officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal, who oversaw the recently concluded West Bengal polls that brought the BJP to power in the state for the first time-ever, was appointed chief secretary on Monday, two days after the new government assumed office.
The appointment order, issued from Nabanna in Howrah and signed by Additional Chief Secretary Rajesh Pandey, will remain in effect “until further order”.
The appointment follows the BJP’s victory in the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, in which the party won 207 seats in the 294-member assembly, ending 15 years of Trinamool Congress rule.
Agarwal, a 1990-batach officer, transitions directly from the role of Chief Electoral Officer—the official who oversaw those very elections—to the state’s top bureaucratic post.
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Served across departments
Agarwal began his administrative career in 1990 as a trainee officer, with early postings as additional district magistrate in Bardhaman, SDO in Bardhaman, ADM in Purulia, and CEO in Jalpaiguri through the 1990s. He served as district magistrate in North Dinajpur from 1999 to 2001, and later in Bardhaman from 2001 to 2003.
His senior-level postings included principal secretary and commissioner in the Food and Supplies Department from 2017 to 2020, principal secretary in Fire and Emergency Services, and additional chief secretary in the Forest Department before his appointment as Chief Electoral Officer in March 2025.
SIR controversy, and a BJP win
The Election Commission selected Agarwal as CEO after rejecting the state’s first shortlist of candidates. It had sought officers who would retire shortly after the 2026 elections — the reasoning being that a near-retirement officer could not easily be pressured by the ruling dispensation. Agarwal, due to retire in July 2026, fit the profile.
His tenure as the CEO was defined by the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls — the first such revision in West Bengal in two decades — which resulted in the removal of over nine million voters from the rolls before the election.
The exercise became a political flashpoint.
The TMC argued it risked disenfranchising genuine voters, while the BJP defended it as a cleansing of bogus entries and illegal migrants. The TMC also formally accused Agarwal of bias in favour of the BJP, filing a complaint with the Election Commission seeking an inquiry and his removal.
The controversy stemmed from an April 5 visit to Nandigram, where Agarwal was seen in the company of a local BJP functionary. The party alleged such proximity compromised the neutrality expected of election officials.
The CBI case
Agarwal’s record is complicated by a past CBI investigation into a disproportionate assets case. In a 2010 written reply to the Rajya Sabha, then Union minister Prithviraj Chavan included Agarwal’s name in a list of IAS officers under investigation.
The CBI, examining assets acquired between 1990 and 2008, alleged he had accumulated wealth 116 percent beyond his known income.
A raid was conducted on his Delhi residence in 2009. The CBI alleged six plots in Dwarka, Gurgaon, Greater Noida, and Kolkata were purchased in his wife’s name, with his father-in-law allegedly used as a conduit.
The charge sheet also named his wife, Rooma, and father-in-law, M.P. Garg, with allegations of nearly 30 bank accounts linked to the case. A special CBI court summoned Agarwal, his wife, and father-in-law in October 2015. The case was subsequently reported as having been dismissed, though the investigation remains a documented part of his official record.
The PDS FIR episode
Agarwal is described in bureaucratic circles as an officer who was transferred out of the Food and Supplies Secretary role in 2018 after ordering an FIR over alleged irregularities in the public distribution system.
The minister then in charge of that department, Jyotipriyo Mallick, was subsequently arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in October 2023 in a money laundering case linked to an alleged multi-crore ration distribution scam.
Timing and significance
Agarwal’s appointment as Chief Secretary comes days after West Bengal’s first BJP government took oath, and weeks before his scheduled retirement in July 2026.
The incoming chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, moved to overhaul the state bureaucracy, replacing officers associated with the previous TMC administration.
Agarwal, who oversaw the election that brought the BJP to power and was transferred out of a department whose minister later faced corruption charges, now heads that bureaucracy.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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