The Calcutta High Court on Thursday put on hold the panchayat election process in West Bengal until the state election commission submitted a detailed report on the election process so far by April 16. The High Court, however, also punished the BJP and slapped a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the party for hiding the fact that it simultaneously filed petitions to the Supreme Court along with the High Court.
The High Court has asked the state election commission to furnish details on the method it was following for conducting the three-tier panchayat election and how many complaints it received regarding this. The High Court also asked the state election commission why it went back from its earlier decision of extending the nomination filing date and what steps it took to contain the violence and alleged irregularities in the election process.
The High Court also said it might consider deferring the election date if it finds that the state election commission did not take enough steps for ensuring a free and fair election.
The lawyers representing the state election commissioner could not say anything regarding the issue and the High Court then asked the commission to file a detailed report on April 16 and till then the election process would be stopped.
Kalyan Banerjee, senior advocate of Calcutta High Court representing the state government, said, “The court has fined BJP because of my complaint that it was doing a suppression of facts. High Court has accepted my admission. However, it wanted a detailed report from the election commission, which will be filed on April 16.”
The High Court had taken up the case after being asked by the Supreme Court three days ago on hearing a plea from the BJP.
The opposition parties alleged that the state election commissioner came under tremendous pressure from the state government run by the Trinamool Congress. And that was the reason due to which the state election commission could not contain the violence across the state. Thousands of opposition party candidates could not file their nominations due to violence from the Trinamool Congress party.
“Three senior ministers of state went to the state election commissioner’s office on the day he decided to extend the date of filing nominations. We have information that he was assaulted by ministers,” said Kailash Vijayvargiya, state in-charge of BJP in West Bengal.
Dilip Ghosh, BJP’s Bengal president, said, “High Court has upheld the spirit of Constitution, which has been ruined in Bengal. We hope the court would give us a favourable verdict for democracy.”
Earlier in the week, the Supreme Court had rejected a plea from the BJP for intervening in the panchayat poll issue. The party had sought the deployment of Central security forces. The BJP had expected positive action from the Supreme Court similar to 2013 when the court ordered Central forces to be deployed in parts of West Bengal during the then-panchayat election.
Despite the setback in the Supreme Court, BJP had managed to file nominations in 25,000 seats out of 48,000 panchayat seats. The CPI(M) and Congress could not file nominations in even 20 per cent of the total seats, showing how these two political parties, once the major players in West Bengal, have been marginalised over the past two years.