Following allegations of large-scale rigging and violence in the civic polls held in West Bengal on Saturday, the State Election Commission (SEC) has put off counting of votes in three municipalities. The counting was scheduled for October 7.
Polls were conducted for the Asansol Municipal Corporation (AMC), the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and 17 wards of the Howrah Municipal Corporation.
State Election Commissioner S.R. Upadhyaya said on Sunday that the counting was postponed so that the Commission could look into the “glaring irregularities.”
Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee said the Commission had “succumbed to the pressure created by the Opposition unnecessarily.”
“We will look into the observers’ report, video footages sent by District Magistrates and media footage to take a decision,” said Mr. Upadhyaya. He refused to answer if the SEC would order fresh polling.
“The Commission will take a call on whether to scrap the polls after looking into the available evidence,” he said.
Significantly, Mr. Upadhyaya admitted that outsiders entered certain booths and influenced voters. In webcam footage, it had come up that outsiders entered certain booths and were issuing instructions to the voters, he said.
As for the attack on more than a dozen journalists on Saturday, Mr. Upadhyaya said the Commission would soon issue instructions in this regard. “In the final instructions, we will ask the police what action has been taken on the attack on journalists,” he said.
Welcoming the decision, senior CPI(M) leader Rabin Deb said: “It is an unprecedented decision in terms of civic polls or rural polls.” He, however, asked why the Commission had not taken action yet against government officials and police personnel who failed to perform their duties during the polls.
The State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party termed the decision “historic.” State president Rahul Sinha demanded that the Chief Minister “resign from the Home Department as she is in charge of it.”
The State Congress leadership also welcomed the Commission’s decision. The party said it showed that the SEC had “realised that the entire poll process was turned into a farce.”
