KMC secretary Swapan Kundu sacked hours after cancelling session; Kishor Kumar Biswas will replace him

The internal administrative crisis within the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) reached a boiling point on Thursday with the sudden, high-profile removal of Municipal Secretary Swapan Kumar Kundu. The state government acted swiftly to strip Kundu of his secretarial position, immediately appointing senior bureaucrat Kishor Kumar Biswas as the new Municipal Secretary of the civic body. This dramatic structural shake-up underlines an escalating administrative war inside the municipal board, which is currently navigating a period of unprecedented volatility.

The severe punitive action against Swapan Kumar Kundu follows directly on the heels of a highly controversial official directive he authorized earlier in the day. As the officiating Secretary, Kundu had officially signed and circulated the formal administrative notification that abruptly postponed the corporation’s highly anticipated monthly municipal session. The sudden cancellation, issued without outlining any valid structural rationale or future timeline, reportedly triggered massive outrage among senior state monitoring committees, prompting top bureaucrats to immediately initiate his removal.

The fast-paced bureaucratic replacement comes amid a broader state of political upheaval across West Bengal after the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) suffered a crushing defeat in the 2026 assembly elections. The resultant regime change has triggered an intense administrative deadlock and an apparent rift between KMC Mayor Firhad Hakim and Municipal Commissioner Smita Pandey. While Kishor Kumar Biswas has been ordered to immediately take charge of the secretariat to restore routine municipal operations, local experts believe this surprise administrative shuffling is a direct attempt to clamp down on the ongoing institutional paralysis gripping the opposition-led civic board.