Panchayat polls: WB poll panel moves court to reject dates

The fight between the West Bengal State Election Commission and the Mamata Banerjee government over the Panchayat poll schedule reached the Calcutta High Court with the election panel today urging that the dates notified by the state be rejected.
The Commission moved the court even as a Left Front delegation met Governor M K Narayanan and sought his intervention to resolve the impasse.
The Commission's counsel L C Bihani brought the matter before the court of Justice Biswanath Somadder and prayed for the cancellation of the dates.
The judge, however, directed the counsel to get the matter listed before he could take it up.

The matter is likely to be considered by the court, following listing, either tomorrow or any day after that.
The Trinamool Congress government and the Commission have been at loggerheads over the schedule of the upcoming Panchayat polls, with the government announcing that these will be held in two phases and that too under the supervision of the state police.

The state government announced recently that the elections will be held on April 26 and 30.
The Commission had earlier proposed that the Panchayat polls be held in three phases and central forces be deployed for the sake of free and fair elections. It also wrote an 11-page letter to the state government explaining why the poll schedule wasn't acceptable to it.

"We met the Governor and appealed to him to intervene and start a conciliatory approach to solve the problem because we want the panchayat elections to be held in time," Left Front chairman Biman Bose told reporters after the meeting.
Bose accused the ruling party of hatching a 'pre-planned conspiracy' to delay the polls forcing the State Election Commission to take to legal recourse.
Claiming that all ministers were not aware of it, he alleged that only Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee and Trinamool Congress General Secretary Mukul Roy were party to it.
"Mukherjee was given the duty of creating confusion by triggering a tiff with the SEC. Roy was given the duty of defending the ruling party's image in the public," Bose alleged, adding that the ruling party was trying to buy time by delaying the process before the grassroot polls.

Bose said, "The government doesn't have any achievements to showcase. And, the Trinamool is plagued by inner fighting and factional feud, so it is trying to buy time before the panchayat polls to tackle those problems.