Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a media briefing stated she has selected Alapan Bandopadhyay as her chief advisor for the next 3 years.
West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay retired from his office and was simultaneously appointed Chief Advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday (May 31).
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a media briefing declared that she has elected Alapan Bandopadhyay as her chief advisor for the next three years. Meanwhile, HK Dwivedi has been appointed as the chief secretary of the state.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to withdraw the Centre’s order dismissing Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, and said her government “cannot release, and is not releasing” the top bureaucrat.
In a five-page letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mamta Banerjee urged him to reconsider the Center’s decision recalling the chief secretary after giving him a three-month extension.
Banerjee stated that she was stunned by the Centre’s decision and termed the order as “unilateral”, and pointed out that it had been done “without any prior consultation” with the state government.
“This so-called unilateral order is an unreasoned volte-face and by your own admission, against the interests of the state and its people.
“I humbly request you to withdraw, recall, reconsider your decision and rescind the latest so-called order in the larger public interest. I appeal to your conscience and good sense, on the behalf of the people of West Bengal,” Banerjee said in her letter to PM Modi.
Alapan Bandyopadhyay is an Indian civil servant and former Chief Secretary of State for the Government of West Bengal. He took over from IAS officer Rajiva Sinha, in the year 2020, starting his tenure under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
He was earlier a district magistrate of Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas districts. He had also served as Kolkata municipal commissioner. He has also headed several departments — transport, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), commerce and industry, information and culture, and home — as principal secretary. The IAS officer also served as interim state election commissioner in 2015.  He has written a book named ‘Amlar Mon’ in 2017.
He is married to the current Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta and academician Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee.
It was notable that he and his wife were sent into quarantine when they were contact-traced to the first reported case of COVID-19 in West Bengal as previously Bengal was relatively COVID free but the new B.1.618, which is a triple mutant strain has been quite lethal in Bengal with now heavy lockdowns, especially in certain red-zoned areas.
