Bengal panchayat poll on May 14, results on May 17

KOLKATA: West Bengal State Election Commission on Thursday accepted the state government’s proposal and notified that elections to 58,467 panchayat seats in the state will be held on a single day on May 14. While re-election will be held on May 16, election result will be declared on May 17.

A notification was issued in this regard stating that the election will be held on May 14 from 7 am to 5 pm as Ramzan would begin from May 15 and monsoon will approach the state from mid-May. The state government had earlier sent a proposal to the SEC suggesting that the election be held on a single day.

However, this comes as a marked shift from the commission’s earlier schedule of elections on three days on May 1, 3 and 5 which was cancelled after the Calcutta High Court ordered the SEC to begin the
election process afresh. The conduct of election on a single day means that some 58,000 state police forces have to man the more than 58,000 booths which means at the most only one police personnel will be available for each booth giving rise to speculation among the Opposition of widespread rigging by ruling party cadres.

Accordingly, Opposition party leaders have severely criticised the move. Calling the move as unconstitutional, CPM leader and senior lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya has called people to hit the streets against the notification.

On the other hand, West Bengal state committee secretary Biman Bose said that the SEC did not hear the grievances of the Opposition parties as asked by the Supreme Court. “This is a declaration of a
violent panchayat election date,” he said.

Congress leader and MP Pradip Banerjee called the declaration of election date on a single day as ‘Ashwamedh Yagna’. “The plan is to ensure that TMC goons take charge of the booths to fulfill the ruling party’s aim of ‘Oppositionless’ panchayat. This is unprecedented in politics of any state in the country,” he said.

Meanwhile retired Supreme Court Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly said that though the High Court does not generally interfere in the election process but the entire panchayat election process in West Bengal has remained violent since declaration of dates of nomination and election.

“The present scenario shows that people’s doubts about security in the election are not unfounded. I don’t know how the state government put such a proposal to conduct election on one day. I don’t see any relation between Ramzan and vote date,” he said. “Does the SEC has any Aladdin lamp to conduct such a massive poll on one single day? However, only the SEC has right to demand central forces as well,” he added.