West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday appointed the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal as the Bengal chief secretary, the state’s top post for a civil servant.
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Agarwal, a 1990-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the West Bengal cadre, replaces Dushyant Nariala, a 1993-batch IAS officer, who was appointed to the post by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on March 15. Nariala will be Bengal’s new resident commissioner in Delhi.
By Monday evening, Agarwal had taken over as chief secretary, the state government’s top bureaucrat entrusted with overseeing the administration and coordinating various departments.
Agarwal is the second bureaucrat, who was closely associated with the election process, to be appointed to a key post in the state’s first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
On Saturday, the state government named retired IAS officer Subrata Gupta as adviser to Adhikari. Gupta, who retired from service in May 2025, was appointed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as the special roll observer for the contentious special intensive revision (SIR) process that led to the removal of about 2.7 million voters from the rolls under the adjudication process (and were awaiting their fate even on the day of election) over and above the 6.2 million who were deleted in SIR apart from the adjudication category.
When the election process started in Bengal, the EC appointed Gupta as the special observer ahead of the assembly elections. The ECI released him on May 7, three days after the poll results were declared.
Agarwal’s appointment on Monday evening coincided with the chief minister finalising portfolios for the five ministers who took oath with him at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground on May 9.
Agnimitra Paul, the first woman inducted into the cabinet of 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. Hakim retained his Kolkata Port assembly seat.
Paul will also be in charge of the women and child development and social welfare department that was previously under Trinamool Congress’s Dr Shashi Panja, who lost her Shyampukur seat.
Former Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, during whose tenure the BJP set a record by winning 19 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, was put in charge of the panchayat, rural development and animal husbandry departments. These were previously under TMC’s Pradip Majumdar and Swapan Debnath respectively. Both lost the polls.
Nisith Pramanik, the former Union minister of state for home affairs who won the assembly polls, was given charge of the north Bengal development department as well as the sports and youth affairs department. These departments were under Udayan Guha and Aroop Biswas respectively. Both lost their seats.
Dalit Matua community leader Ashok Kirtania became the food department minister. The portfolio was earlier held by TMC’s Rathin Ghosh who won his Madhyamgram seat.
Tribal community leader Kshudiram Tudu was named Bengal’s new backward classes welfare minister, a portfolio earlier held by Bulu Chik Baraik who was defeated. Tudu will also handle minority affairs and the madrasah education department, which were earlier under Mamata Banerjee.
In the two-phase elections, the BJP won 207 of Bengal’s 294 seats against the TMC’s 80. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee was among 22 ministers who could not retain their seats.
