Bengal advocate general S N Mookherjee submitted to the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj on Thursday that the state would conduct the elections to five municipal corporations namely Bidhannagar, Howrah, Asansol, Siliguri and Chandannagar on January 22 and hold elections to the rest of municipalities on February 27.
The state in consultation with the State Election Commission (SEC) had proposed a six- to eight-phase civic poll that it reduced to two following the Kolkata civic polls, days after the HC directed the state to bring down the number of phases.
The division bench also took up the hearing of the petitions by CPM, CPI and BJP candidates complaining violence and coercion and also blocking of CCTV cameras in some booths. Counsel for petitioners, Siddhartha Chatterjee, prayed for preservation of all KMC poll-related documents and also the CCTV cameras in booths for audit.
BJP counsel Bilwadal Bhattacharya pointed out to the bench that the EVMs used didn’t have the NOTA option. Bhattacharya submitted that the absence of the option was a gross violation of the SC order.
The advocate general opposed the petitions by three KMC candidates complaining violence and coercion and also blocking of CCTV cameras. Mookherjee submitted that FIRs were lodged on specific incidents and arrests were also made.
SEC counsel Ratnanko Banerjee while placing the compliance report on the HC directives ahead of KMC polls submitted that the Commission carried out court directive on confidence building of people by conducting route march and naka checking.
The division bench later held that the court would pass an interim order in a day or two and fixed the next date of hearing on January 6.
‘Give security to Curved candidate’
Calcutta High Court directed the state to provide personal security to Ward 16 Congress candidate Rabi Saha for seven days. Saha had moved the court complaining against police inaction after being beaten on poll day. The HC also directed recording of Saha’s statement by a judicial magistrate under IPC 164.
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