West Bengal: TMC moves Supreme Court seeking appointment of state govt employees to supervise counting

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission's (EC) decision to deploy only Central Government and Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) employees as supervisors for the vote counting on May 4.

The Mamata Banerjee-led party has now urged the apex court to include state government employees to help supervise vote counting in West Bengal after the Calcutta High Court quashed the TMC's plea challenging the earlier EC order, which had mandated that at least one person at every counting table—specifically the counting supervisor—should be a Central Government or PSU official.

The matter will be heard before a special session of the Supreme Court on Saturday.

This comes a day after the Kolkata Police imposed Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Suraksha (BNSS), 2023, in at least seven areas with EVM strongrooms, some of which had seen an intense political standoff between BJP and TMC party workers ahead of the May 4 vote counting.

This means a ban on any kind of gatherings in these locations until the Section 163 order is lifted, in the interest of maintaining order.

The BJP-TMC standoff began after TMC leaders Kunal Ghosh and Shashi Panja claimed that the EC and the BJP had already "opened ballot boxes" at an EVM strongroom at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata.

“Party workers and supporters had been present outside the strongroom till 3:30 PM. Suddenly, an email was sent informing that the strongroom would be opened again at 4 PM. We contacted our workers and they said they had left. We then rushed here. Now we are not being allowed to enter. BJP is being invited,” Ghosh told reporters amid a TMC dharna outside the strongroom.

CM Banerjee, who had warned that the BJP would allegedly engage in dirty tactics, urged her party workers to guard EVM strongrooms across the state till counting day, and herself rushed to an EVM strongroom at the Sakhawat Memorial School in Bhabanipur.

However, the presence of a large TMC-linked vehicle there, in addition to her being allowed inside the strongroom did not sit well with BJP workers, who tried to block the vehicle and protested there.

The standoff was broken after the Section 163 order was imposed. West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal has also clarified that CM Banerjee's allegations of ballot box tampering were "baseless".

"One should have reason and evidence for making allegations," he said, noting that there was also "no scope" for such activities due to careful monitoring of the EVM strongrooms and the presence of CAPF officers.