While 188A Harish Chatterjee was the residence of Mamata Banerjee, 121 Kalighat Road was the party’s headquarters. Abhishek Banerjee’s office was located at 9 Camac Street

The security arrangements outside the residences of outgoing chief minister Mamata Banerjee and his nephew Abhishek Banerjee were scaled down on Wednesday morning, two days after the ouster of the 15-year-old Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the West Bengal assembly elections.

“Police arrangements outside three premises – 188A Harish Chatterjee, 121 Kalighat Road and 9 Camac Street – have been scaled down from 6:30am on Wednesday. Some of the security arrangements like scissor barricades were replaced by manual guardrails on Tuesday,” said a police officer aware of the developments.

While 188A Harish Chatterjee was the residence of Mamata Banerjee, 121 Kalighat Road was the party’s headquarters. Abhishek Banerjee’s office was located at 9 Camac Street.

The development comes two days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the two-phase assembly polls held in April this year. While the BJP secured 207 seats, the TMC bagged 80 seats out of the 294 assembly seats. The ECI has ordered repolling in one seat.“Only the Z+ security arrangement will remain. The extra police personnel, who were deployed beyond the Z+ category security, were withdrawn,” said an IPS officer aware of the developments.

The internal memo, ordering the trimming of security cover, was issued by the Joint Commissioner of Kolkata Police (HQ) on Tuesday.

Police said that some of the hi-tech security arrangements such as scissor barricades, which were installed on Harish Chatterjee around 200 metres ahead of Banerjee’s residence in Kalighat area, were removed on Tuesday. These machine-operated barricades, which are usually set up in high-security zones, were replaced by manual guard rails.

Meanwhile, the state’s advocate general Kishore Datta also sent his resignation to Governor of West Bengal RN Ravi. Datta was the advocate general from December 2023. He was also the state’s advocate general from 2017 – 2021.“I have sent my resignation to the Governor on Tuesday,” Datta told HT.