Trinamool lauds SC decision not to intervene in Bengal Panchayat polls

West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Monday welcomed the Supreme Court's decision not to interfere with the rural polls to be held next month, saying the collective attempt of the opposition parties to hinder the election process have "failed".

"We welcome the verdict of the Supreme Court. Our party has always been respectful towards the court and Indian judicial system. Our faith in the court's judgment could not be tampered by the collective efforts of all the opposition parties here," Trinamool Secretary General Partha Chatterjee told reporters here.

"The Congress moved the (Calcutta) High Court and the BJP the Supreme Court regarding the Panchayat polls. But all attempts of all the opposition parties to delay the rural election process has failed. The court's verdict is a reflection of people's wish to apply their domocratic right to vote," he said.

Chatterjee claimed that the opposition parties are busy playing the "victim card" as they lack organisational strength to field candidates in all the available seats and refuted their allegation of violence by the ruling party as baseless.

"The opposition parties have filed nomination in more than 49 percent seats in the three layered election process till yesterday. If there were so much opposition from the ruling party, how did they manage to do so? No one would believe them," he said.

State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh, however claimed that the onus is now on election commission to ensure free and fair election process after the apex court's verdict.

"The Supreme Court has asked the State Election Commission to conduct free and fair election process here. According to the written judgement issued by the apex court in this matter has clearly directed the SEC to conduct the election peacefully. So if someone fails to file nomination, it is now the SEC's responsibility to help him out and also assure the candidate's safety," said Ghosh, while accepting that the court's verdict has not gone the way they wanted to.

"Our representatives have taken 1,000 forms of our candidates across the state who were not able to file the nomination due to the violence of ruling party. The State Election Commissioner said he would look into it andA sought time from us to look into it," he added.

The state unit of BJP moved the apex court accusing Trinamool of large-scale, pre-poll violence against their candidates and demanded the Panchayat polls be rescheduled. It had also sought availability of nomination papers online, extension of the last date for filing these papers and deployment of central forces in the state during the elections.

A bench of Justice R.K. Agrawal and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre in the Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the Panchayat elections here but granted liberty to the aggrieved candidates to approach the State Election Commission with their issues.

--IANS

mgr/vd