E-Paper
‘Abdicating mandate’: Guv Dhankhar’s sharp message to Bengal election official
West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who summoned State Election Commissioner Saurabh Das to Raj Bhawan on Tuesday afternoon, conveyed his strong observations at their meeting and followed it up with a letter to the official mandated to conduct panchayat and urban civic body polls.
KOLKATA: Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday asked West Bengal state election commissioner Saurabh Das not to become “an extension” of the Mamata Banerjee governmen, observing that he has received numerous inputs indicating that the State Election Commission (SEC) has abdicated its constitutional mandate and authority and was toeing the Mamata Banerjee government’s line.
Dhankhar, who summoned Saurabh Das to Raj Bhawan on Tuesday afternoon, conveyed his observations at their meeting and followed it up with a letter to the official mandated to conduct panchayat and urban civic body polls.
The governor also nudged the state election commission to hold simultaneous polls in all civic bodies, underlining that it was the SEC which initially proposed to hold elections to all civic body elections at the same time. “The overwhelming political inputs are for the same. There does not appear any rationale for any deviation thereof,” Dhankhar said in his two-page letter which he also posted on Twitter.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the state’s main opposition force, has demanded simultaneous elections to all civic bodies. The BJP has also petitioned the Calcutta high court to seek simultaneous elections to all civic bodies across the state’s 23 districts on a single day. The high court is scheduled to hear the petition again on Wedneday.
The state government wants to hold the polls in phases, starting with Kolkata and Howrah on December 19.
In his letter a day before the high court hearing, Dhankhar said: “It is imperative at your end to ensure that constitutional mandate (to act independent of the state government) is regarded both in letter and spirit, and I am sure you will bear this in mind”.
Dhankhar summarised the key points from his meeting and letter in a string of tweets.
“Cautioned Shri Saurav Das that SEC @MamataOfficial toeing the line of State Government and be merely its executing agency, would be an outrage of Constitution as also unwholesome for the democratic process. It will run down essence and spirit of constitutional provisions in Part IXA.”
He also underlined that SEC’s authority to take decisions on the civic elections were on par with the Election Commission of India (EC) and “should be non-partisan, independent and effective and not an extension of govt”.
To be sure, governor Dhankhar has not signed off on the law cleared by the Bengal assembly to split the Howrah corporation zone so that a new civic body can be formed at Bally.
“We hope the governor will sign the bill soon,” said parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee.
Responding to Dhankhar’s interaction with the state’s top election official and his public posts, TMC minister Tapas Roy said: “The governor can always give advice to anyone but he surely knows that the state election commission is an independent body, just like the Election Commission of India.”
The TMC controls most of the civic bodies in Bengal. The terms of the elected boards ended over two years ago but elections were not held because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
All political parties have started preparing for the polls and the search for candidates has begun in Kolkata and Howrah where elections will be held first unless the high court passes an order against the government’s decision.
Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said, “Transparency and accountability will be the main criteria during our search for candidates.”
Though the BJP was the first to form election committees for Kolkata and Howrah, some party leaders acknowledged that differences over the selection of its members did surface.
On November 17, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar announced that an 18-member committee has been formed for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation election with Arjun Singh, Lok Sabha member from Barrakpore in North 24 Parganas, Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato, Lok Sabha member from Purulia district and Anindya Banerjee, a new state vice-president, as observers.
Former union minister Dinesh Trivedi, who left the TMC and switched allegiance in March, was made head of the election committee for Kolkata.
On Sunday, another state vice-president, Pratap Banerjee, was put in charge of the committee by Majumdar after some leaders demanded that a BJP old-timer from Kolkata be inducted as leader of the team.
TMC leaders said their party will focus on candidates with a proven track record and a clean image.
“The top leadership will take the final call but we are not expecting to see too many new candidates in Kolkata because most of our councillors have performed well,” a TMC south Kolkata unit leader said on condition of anonymity.
Of the 144 councillor seats in Kolkata, the CPI(M) may contest around 90, said its Kolkata leaders. Six months ago, neither the Left nor Congress could win any assembly seat for the first time since Independence.
Since civic body polls have not been held in 2019, elected heads of the civic boards were appointed as administrators. For example, minister Firhad Hakim, who was the mayor of Kolkata, continues as head of the administrative board of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
