WB panchayat polls will be on May 14: EC

Under intense pressure from the Mamata Banerjee Government to complete rural poll process before the onset of Ramadan, the Bengal State Election Commission on Thursday announced single-phased Panchayat elections on May 14, opening up yet another possibility of judicial intervention.

Though Opposition BJP, CPI(M) and the Congress were yet to disclose their next step privately their leaders wondered how the same Commission which had earlier announced a three-phased poll could shrink the electoral exercise into a one-phased notwithstanding the massive violence during nomination stage that saw opposition parties taking judicial recourse.

According to the Thursday’s circular the polls for three-tier Panchayat would now be held on May 14. Re-polling would be held on May 16 and counting would be held on May 17.

Earlier the elections were scheduled for May 1, 3 and 5 and counting was to be held on May 8. Things got delayed after the opposition parties moved the Supreme Court and then High Court following a forward roll by the Commission which granted an additional one day window for filing nomination considering large-scale violence during the 7-day nomination process leaving hundreds of people injured.

Even as the SEC withdrew the order hours after circulating it the High Court directed it to give an additional day for filing nomination on= May 23. The High Court also directed the SEC to take all the stakeholders including the political parties into confidence and keep the Bench of Chief Justice informed about the security arrangements so as to ensure a peaceful, free and fare election.

With the Commission coming out with a fresh day for one-phase poll the opposition parties now have expressed concern about the security arrangements “particularly when the State has assured a total 58,000 police personnel to be posted at 58,446 booths.”

“The total of 58,000 police personnel is broken into 46,000 riflemen and 12,000 men with lathi. In the given circumstances where the miscreants are raining bombs and bullets from all directions is one police man for a booth enough?” asked Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya. The elections were being rendered into a farce said BJP’s Raju Banerjee.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to all the political parties to allow the democratic process to be followed in a peaceful manner. “I will request all the parties not to spread disinformation and allow the elections to take place in a peaceful manner. Let democracy thrive in Bengal.”

In a related development former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee earlier said that Bengal was an ideal case for President’s Rule.

Talking to newsmen the veteran parliamentarian wondered on Wednesday, “why the Chief Minister is trying to grab all the power. Why is there so much of lust for sticking to power at any cost. Her party would have won even without resorting to violence. So what is the need for doing all this?”

Claiming that the current situation in Bengal could invite imposition of Article 356, Chatterjee said “elections are like festivals in Bengal where even the hungry people go and exercise their rights. But here even that right is taken away forcibly. I don’t know there may be a demand for Article 356 in coming days.”

Reacting to Chatterjee’s statements senior Bengal Minister Partho Chatterjee said “Somnath Babu should have also spoken about the way elections were conducted during the Left era.”