There was no end in sight to the impasse over the panchayat polls in West Bengal with the hearing in the Calcutta High Court remaining inconclusive on Tuesday. The hearing will continue on Wednesday before Justice Subrata Talukdar.
During the hearing, Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee said the petition by the Opposition parties was not maintainable. Mr. Banerjee cited a number of orders of the Supreme Court stating that the High Court cannot intervene in an election process after the dates of the polls have been announced. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) representative also said the rights of candidates who are contesting the polls as TMC nominees should also be upheld by holding the elections in time.
Justice Talukdar said the Supreme Court in an order on April 9 had asked that grievances of the people who had approached the court be addressed. He pointed out that after extending the nomination process on April 9 for a day the State Election Commission reversed the order the very next day. The judge observed that he was concerned over whatever happened between April 9 and April 10 and the role of the State Election Commission on the issue.
On Tuesday, the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court comprising Justices Biswanath Somadder and Arinadam Mukherjee said it “did not wish to interfere with the order passed by the single bench.”
On April 12, Justice Talukdar issued a stay on the poll process after which the TMC and the Commission approached the Division Bench.
The elections to the three-tier panchayats in 20 districts of the State have been scheduled in three phases on May 1, 3 and 5. Political parties in the Opposition have alleged that the TMC had prevented their candidates from filing nomination papers between April 2 and April 9. Experts are of the opinion that considering that only two weeks are left for the polls, and the withdrawal process not being completed it is practically difficult to conduct the polls as per schedule.
