Kolkata: In a telling blow to the beleaguered Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court yesterday ordered three-phase panchayat (rural body) polls in West Bengal with deployment of central armed police personnel. The state government announced it would appeal against the “impractical” order.
Justice Biswanath Sommader upheld the primacy of the State Election Commission, which had challenged the state government’s announcement of a two-stage poll under the supervision of the state security forces.
Terming the verdict “impractical, impossible to implement and unacceptable”, state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee said the government would move the division bench on Monday.
Addressing a rally at Burdwan, Chief Minister Banerjee asserted the elections would be held at the right time despite a “conspiracy” hatched by opposition parties to prevent timely panchayat polls.
The SEC had moved the petition on April 1, questioning section 42 of the West Bengal Panchayat Election Act, citing which the state government announced on March 22 two-phased polls to be held on April 26 and 30, under the supervision of the state police.
Justice Sommader directed the state government to finalise the list of election observers and intimate the poll panel about it by today. The verdict also asked the government to intimate the SEC by today about “fully compensating the shortfall of security personnel by deployment of central paramilitary forces as well as forces from other states”.
IANS
