Situation not conducive to holding civil poll: BJP

Alleging that the situation in West Bengal was not conducive to holding the civic poll, BJP today said the State Election Commission should reschedule the poll dates and hold it in phases instead of on a single day to ensure a fair election.
"It's not possible to hold the elections to so many seats on a single day and the SEC must reschedule the poll dates according to the availability of the number of central forces," BJP's West Bengal president Rahul Sinha said accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress of resorting to politics of threat for gain in the polls.
"We are not interested in how many companies of central forces are coming for the elections but we want the Commission to deploy them at least 10 days before the elections, giving them the total responsibility to hold a safe election process," Sinha said.

He also alleged that TMC workers were threatening BJP candidates to withdraw nominations, assaulting BJP workers and the state police only remained "mute spectators".
"We have met the Governor, the state Election Commissioner and reported them about these incidents but nothing much has happened," he said.
Incidentally, the state government on Friday has informed the SEC of having no objection for deployment of central forces in the upcoming KMC elections.
Elections to the KMC and the 93 other civic bodies, scheduled for April 18 and April 25 respectively, are being considered the biggest polls before the Assembly elections next year.

On TMC taking a strong exception to his presence during Union Minister Rajnath Singh's meeting with Governor K N Tripathi at Raj Bhavan yesterday, questioning his 'locus standi' to be present there, Sinha said, "First of all I would like to point out that it was not any administrative meet".