The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday pulled up the State Election Commission and the Bengal Government for fixing the dates for panchayat elections on May 14 without complying with the earlier court order. The HC direction had made it mandatory for the SEC to submit a detailed report on security arrangements before announcing the poll dates.
The Single Bench of Justice S Taluqdar said the election date given by the SEC is “tentative”, not final.
Apparently under pressure from the Mamata Government, the SEC had earlier declared a single-phase poll on May 14 in order to complete the process before the month of Ramzan set in, said sources.
Justice Taluqdar wondered whether pleading for a single-phase poll without fully complying with his earlier order not amounted to pulling the wool over the judiciary’s eyes.
The court also questioned the legality of the SEC announcing the nomination dates and dates for withdrawal of nominations before fixing the poll dates, BJP petitioner Pratap Banerjee said.
The Opposition parties, including the BJP, the CPI(M), and the Congress, have questioned the SEC’s ability to conduct elections with 46,000 armed personnel for more than 58,000 booths.
The State has already witnessed violence during the filing of nominations that left at least seven people dead and more than 500 injured.
The court fixed the next date of hearing on May 4 when the SEC would be required to present a report on the
security arrangements. Apart from the single Bench, a Division Bench is also hearing a separate petition filed by the BJP which has questioned the reason behind the poll panel’s decision to announce a single-phase poll, though it had earlier declared three-phase elections on May 1, 3 and 5 before the whole matter went for judicial scrutiny.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said his party had no problem with a single-phase election, “but they have to ensure full security where the votes are not looted.”
The State Government and the SEC were dragged to the court for the first time last month when the SEC, in the wake of large-scale violence during nomination process, provided an extra day for filing nomination papers before hurriedly withdrawing it allegedly under pressure from the Government.
Following a judicial intervention, the additional one-day window for filing nomination papers was restored and the original dates of May 1, 3 and 5 were reshuffled. A fresh date was fixed for May 14.
However, the Opposition parties once again moved the Calcutta High Court on security issues and asked why the SEC shrunk the three-phase election process to a one-day affair.