Elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) may be held in March 2021 ahead of the crucial state assembly polls, top officials of the West Bengal State Election Commission said.
“As per the Supreme Court’s directive, the state government has sent a communication to us saying that the KMC polls may be held within four weeks after the final electoral roll is adopted by the SEC,” said a senior official of the poll panel.
While the summary revision for the electoral roll is going on, the final roll would be published by the Election Commission of India on January 15, 2021. It would take around a month after that for the SEC to adopt the final roll. Polls may be held four weeks after the SEC’s adoption.
Elections to more than 107 civic bodies, including KMC, have been pending for over a year and these bodies are currently being run by administrators appointed by the Mamata Banerjee-administration.
“The Trinamool Congress (TMC) knows very well that it won’t be able to win the municipal elections and hence was delaying it. But now on the orders of the SC it has to declare the dates,” said Dilip Ghosh, president of BJP’s Bengal unit.
{{/usCountry}}“The Trinamool Congress (TMC) knows very well that it won’t be able to win the municipal elections and hence was delaying it. But now on the orders of the SC it has to declare the dates,” said Dilip Ghosh, president of BJP’s Bengal unit.
{{/usCountry}}While the Calcutta High Court had observed that the pending elections should be held as soon as possible, the state needs to inform the Supreme Court this week about its stand on conducting civic polls.
“As the scope of the case is related to KMC elections, we have no communication from the state government yet as to when polls for the other municipal bodies would be held,” said the SEC official.
The TMC party, however, sounded confident about winning the civic polls and said that the party is not afraid of exams.
“We have worked throughout the year and hence we are not afraid of any exams. Let the polls be held at any time of the year,” said Bratya Basu, state minister and TMC leader.