Civic polls: Calcutta HC seeks affidavit from state, SEC on Oppn pleas

THE CALCUTTA High Court has directed the state government and the State Election Commission (SEC) to file affidavits on the cases filed by the Opposition on charges of violence and vote rigging in the recently held elections to four civic bodies in the state.

The High Court has also ordered the preservation of all CCTV footage and election-related documents of the four municipalities. The affidavit must be submitted by February 21. The next hearing of the case is on the same day.

BJP leader Pratap Banerjee on Tuesday moved the Calcutta High Court on behalf of the party’s state unit, alleging violence and vote-rigging in the municipal elections. The Left Front also approached the court with a similar plea. After accepting those petitions, the court heard the case on Wednesday. At the hearing, Banerjee’s lawyer Ranjit Kumar argued that the state administration turned the election held in four municipalities into a “farce.” He added that he court should direct the state government to deploy central forces to put security arrangements in place when 108 municipalities go to the polls on February 27, so that “democratic rights of the common man
are protected.”

The BJP’s lawyer added that the court had relied on the SEC but the commission could not do justice to that belief. Government projects such as ‘Duare Sarkar’ were announced during the election, which the lawyer said was against the election model code of conduct.

On behalf of the Election Commission, lawyer Jayant Mitra on the same day denied the allegations of violence and vote rigging by the opposition lawyer. He told the court that there had been some “sporadic unrest” in the municipal elections. However, the election has been peaceful on the whole. He said that the State Election Commission has taken necessary steps in isolated incidents.

Advocate General Soumendranath Mukherjee told the court on the same day, “Unrest has taken place in some places in Bidhannagar. However, the elections in the remaining three municipalities have been peaceful. The police have already lodged complaints in all those cases 72 per cent of the people participated in the election.”

After that, the High Court directed the state government to submit an affidavit, whether central forces can be deployed in the rest of the civic polls. The court also asked the SEC to submit an affidavit on whether two government projects, ‘Paray Samadhan’ and ‘Duare Sarkar’ can be stopped until the election is over.