WB Panchayat Polls: govt alters division of districts as compromise formula

12 districts in South Bengal would be covered in phase I on April 26, five in North Bengal in second on April 30

A day after the State Election Commission (SEC) wrote to the West Bengal government refusing to accept its Panchayat poll dates, the state government today climbed down from its stand.

Though the West Bengal Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee today came down heavily on the poll panel describing its 11-page letter as "school-boyish", it implicitly offered a compromise formula. The compromise entailed a more legitimate division of districts in the two phases.

Initially state Panchyat minister said, twelve districts in South Bengal would be covered in the first phase on April 26 and five districts in North Bengal in the second on April 30. Later in the evening Mukherjee announced alteration in division in districts for the third time.

According to government's latest announcement, first phase election would take place in eleven districts of South Bengal, while five districts of North Bengal and Murshidabad would be covered in the second phase.

Earlier, the state government had decided to hold elections in three districts—Malda, Murshidabad and North Dinajpur—in the second phase.

SEC, however, is yet to respond to state government's revised poll schedule. Officials said, SEC would respond after discussing the matter in internal meeting on Thursday.

The decision to alter the districts in the two phases, however, was communicated in the second press conference held by the panchayat minister. In the first press conference, just about half an hour before the second, the minister had said, "Ten and a half pages of the letter are irrelevant. It seems they wanted to grab newspaper headlines and may be they have some other purpose too. There is no question of reconsidering our decision. We are sticking to the poll dates, which are already being notified. We are sending a reply today stating our stand."

He also dared the SEC to move court over the issue. "It is not just the State Election Commission, anybody can move the court if the person wants. Whatever we have done, is in accordance with the state Panchayat Act. It was the responsibility of the state government to fix the dates, now the SEC is expected to conduct the election. It is upto them what they want to do."

State Election Commissioner Mira Pandey, meanwhile, met Governor M K Narayan today to explain the commission's stance. The Governor later called on the chief secretary later to discuss the matter.

The latest decision of the state government was likely to be more palatable for the State Election Commission. Apart from the main bone of contention—a three phase poll in the presence of the central security forced—the curious division of districts over two phases was understood to have irked the election commission.

The second phase would have included just Congress-dominated Malda, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur. Some senior bureaucrats had suggested that as a compromise formula, the state government should divide the districts equally, but it was quashed by the leadership.
 
No rationale was provided for this division and it was also mentioned in the letter sent by the election commission.

Writers' Building—the state secretariat—was  abuzz with theories on the face-off between the state government and the election commission.

"It is possible that the TMC leadership does not want panchayat elections now. The panchayat bodies would have to be dissolved in June, if elections were not held by then, the administration would take charge and the government would have complete control," explained a Writers' Building official.