BJP moves court after election body okays Kolkata, Howrah civic polls on Dec 19 – Hindustan Times

KOLKATA: The West Bengal State Election Commission on Tuesday accepted the state government’s proposal to hold civic body elections in Kolkata and Howrah on December 19, prompting the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rush to the Calcutta high court with a petition that wants the court to order simultaneous elections in all civic bodies in Bengal in February next year.

Holding local polls in phases has no logic and can be termed illegal, the petition said, arguing that elections to the Kolkata and Howrah civic bodies also should be held in February else it will deprive about 2 million first-time voters expected to be enrolled in January from exercising their franchise.

The five-year term of elected representatives who run West Bengal’s 120-odd municipalities and corporations ended over the last two years. Elections were scheduled to be held last year but were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, the state election commission, which is mandated to conduct panchayat and civic body elections, conveyed its decision to accept the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government’s proposal to hold elections to the Kolkata and Howrah municipal corporations on December 19.

Not all wards of the existing Howrah corporation will get to vote since the Mamata Banerjee government has decided to carve another corporation from Howrah’s Bally area.

“The cabinet today decided to delink Bally from the Howrah municipal corporation. A formal proposal will be placed before the legislative assembly this week,” parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said.

Chatterjee brushed aside the BJP protests and its petition in the high court, insisting that the opposition party moved court because it was afraid of losing the civic polls after the debacle in the assembly elections this year and the recent bypolls. The Trinamool Congress won the four seats that voted in the October 30 bypoll.

“The BJP did not say a word when the Election Commission of India decided to hold the assembly polls in eight phases in March-April,” said Chatterjee, a reference to the back-and-forth between the BJP and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress over the assembly election schedule.

BJP state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar shot back: “The TMC did not hesitate to take part in the state polls during a pandemic. Festivals have also been held. What is stopping the government from holding all civic polls on a single day?”

Majumdar said the BJP demanded that the polls be held in February because the new voters’ list will be published on January 5. “According to our estimate, around two million new names are likely to be added. It will take at least 15 days to include these names in the local voter charts. Why should so many young voters be deprived?” Majumdar told HT.

Administrative officers from Kolkata and Howrah have been asked to attend a meeting at the state election commission’s office on November 12, officials said.

Opposition parties, especially the BJP, have been demanding polls in the civic bodies saying these were indefinitely postponed by the government for political reasons. After the tenure of the boards ended, the government appointed members of the existing boards as administrative heads.

At the 145-year-old Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), for example, cabinet minister Firhad Hakim was made chairman of the board of administrators after his tenure as mayor ended. TMC earlier had an absolute majority in the KMC board.

Congress state president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “I am not concerned about when the polls will be held. I am keen to know if it will be free and fair because, in earlier polls, many people were not allowed to file nomination and voters faced intimidation from the ruling party.”

CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said, “We have been demanding these polls for two years. We want to know who will audit the expenditure made by the administrative bodies during this interim period. We are quite sure public money was squandered.”