With consensus regarding Bengal panchayat polls still elusive, the Trinamool Congress Government on Friday trained its guns on the State Election Commission for conniving with “certain political outfits and speaking their lingo in order to derail and defer the panchayat elections.”
Former Railway Minister and senior Trinamool functionary Mukul Roy on Friday attacked State Election Commissioner Mira Pandey for trading letters with the Government with “each such letter appears to have been drafted in the office of a political party giving rise to genuine doubts about the intentions of the Commission.”
He was joined in his attack by State Panchayat Minister Subroto Mukherjee who after emerging from a meeting with the Governor questioned the need of 800 companies of Central forces iterating the law and order situation of the State was among the best in the country.
“It is difficult to understand as to why the Commissioner is stressing on Central forces,” Mukherjee said informing the Government had not requisitioned Central forces as per the wishes of the Commission.
“The law and order situation of our State is one of the best in the country and hence there is no justification in spending Rs350 crore by bringing in Central forces,” Mukherjee said reminding law and order was a State subject and the Commission had no right to intervene in that.
Holding panchayat elections with the help of Central forces was unprecedented and there was no guarantee that the forces could be made available even if they were, sought, the Minister said.
Earlier the Government had unanimously declared the poll dates on April 26 and 30 but the Government schedule lost force technically as the Commission refused to formally notify the poll dates raising a host of issues including transfer of about 20 BDOs, recurring law and order problems inadequacy of armed forces.
Friday was the last date for the Commission to notify the poll dates failing which the Government will now have to give new dates. This, against the backdrop of the fact that the terms of the sitting panchayat bodies would end in mid-June.
If the present situation continued then there would be a Constitutional crisis in the State, PCC president Pradip Bhattacharya said.