On the eve of the first meeting of the commission, Leader of Opposition in state Assembly Partha Chatterjee said that he would skip the meeting and instead express his opinion against setting up of the commission to Governor

M K Narayanan.

“The order was passed by the Supreme Court in 2006 and now the Left Front government is setting up the commission. This is a government on its last leg and it has no right to constitute such a commission,” said Chatterjee. “When we will come to power next year, we will set up the commission and show how a police force can work impartially,” he added.

It’s not only the delay in setting up the commission. Another growing criticism is that the Left Front government chose to give the responsibility to head the security commission to health and family welfare minister Surya Kanta Mishra, a violation of the Supreme Court order which said the chairman of the state security commission should be either the chief minister or the home minister. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should have been the chairman of the commission as he also holds the portfolio of home department. “How can the health minister head a commission on security. Everybody knows how the CPM uses the police,” said a senior officer.