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Bengal poll body hits pause on civic body polls, will let court decide case first
The West Bengal State Election Commission , which is mandated to hold urban local body and panchayat elections, told the calcutta high court that it was in no rush to go aheaad with civic body polls in Kolkata and Howrah and will wait for the court to decide the BJP petition.
KOLKATA: The West Bengal State Election Commission on Tuesday told the Calcutta high court that it will not issue the notification for elections to any of the state’s 120-odd civic bodies till the two-judge bench decides a petition filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP rushed to the Calcutta high court last week after the commission accepted the ruling Trinamool Congress government’s suggestion to hold elections to the Kolkata and Howrah municipal corporations on December 19. The BJP wants the high court to order the state election commission to hold elections to all civic bodies in one go.
On Tuesday, the commission, which is mandated to hold urban local body and panchayat elections, told the high court that it was in no rush and will wait for the high court to decide the petition before issuing the election notification.
The assurance implies that there is a distinct possibility that the commission will have to reschedule the elections proposed for December 19.
Bengal minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said the commission’s decision was appropriate. “The commission did the right thing since the matter is sub judice. The polls can be held after the case is heard” said Chattopadhyay.
BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh welcomed the development.
“We have questioned the state’s decision to hold polls only in Kolkata and Howrah. Why should people in the rest of Bengal be deprived? The government cannot cite lack of manpower as an excuse to hold these elections in phases,” said Ghosh.
Opposition parties in Bengal have been demanding civic elections for more than a year.
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) controls most of the 120-odd civic bodies in Bengal. The terms of the elected boards ended over the last two years but elections were not held because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The state government appointed the elected heads of the civic boards as administrators till fresh polls are held. For example, minister Firhad Hakim, who was the mayor of Kolkata, was made head of the administrative board of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
This decision also became a political issue on the eve of the March-April assembly polls.
On March 20, the Election Commission of India, which conducted the assembly elections, passed an order saying politicians appointed as administrative heads of civic corporation and municipalities beyond their terms be replaced by government officers within 48 hours.
Since the administrators were politically affiliated people the situation could “give rise to a legitimate apprehension in the mind of the voters about the fairness and impartiality of the election process,” the ECI said.
The order, said the ECI, was passed “to avoid a situation where critical functions of urban local bodies are actually discharged and thereby affecting level playing field during the operation of Model Code of Conduct….”
This triggered a sharp reaction among TMC leaders who saw it as a move against the ruling party prior to the eight-phase polls that began on March 27. The TMC, however, secured 213 of the state’s 294 assembly seats while the BJP won 77 against its declared target of 200.
