Overview
- West Bengal’s chief electoral officer, Manoj Kumar Agrawal, ordered the suspensions on Sunday after a video from Saturday showed three central force members inside a Trinamool Congress office playing carrom.
- The three personnel were taken off poll duty and a departmental inquiry was opened, with officials saying the video’s authenticity is under examination.
- Reports differed on the location, with some placing the scene in Siuri in Birbhum district and others in Siliguri, and news agencies said they could not independently verify the footage.
- Political reactions split quickly, as BJP and Congress leaders called the conduct unacceptable and TMC figures downplayed it as casual interaction not amounting to wrongdoing.
- The action follows earlier discipline this week for personnel accused of attending an Iftar in Murshidabad, reflecting the Commission’s bar on hospitality and social events for deployed forces and its plan to field about 480 CAPF companies with tighter monitoring.