Bengal’s Advocate General SN Mukherjee submitted a memorandum to the bench of the Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava And Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj said on Thursday that the state will hold elections for five municipal corporations namely Vidhannagar, Howrah, Asansol, Siliguri and Chandannagar on January 22 and for the rest of the municipalities on February 27.
The state, in consultation with the State Election Commission (SEC), had proposed the civic polls to be held in six to eight phases, which was reduced to two after the Kolkata civic polls. court Instructed the states to reduce the number of phases.
The Bench also heard complaints of violence and coercion by CPM, CPI and BJP candidates and petitions for blocking of CCTV cameras at some booths. The petitioners’ counsel Siddharth Chatterjee prayed for protection of all documents related to the KMC elections and audit of CCTV cameras in the booths.
BJP’s counsel Bilvadal Bhattacharya told the bench that the EVMs used did not have the option of NOTA. Bhattacharya submitted that the absence of option is a gross violation of the Supreme Court order.
The Advocate General opposed the petitions by three KMC candidates complaining of violence and coercion and blocking of CCTV cameras. Mukherjee submitted that FIRs were registered on specific incidents and arrests were also made.
SEC Consultant Ratnanko Banerjee Keeping the compliance report on the directions of the HC ahead of the KMC elections, said that the commission fulfilled the court’s direction on building trust of the people by conducting route marches and naka checking.
The division bench later said that the court would pass an interim order in a day or two and the next date of hearing would be fixed on January 6.
‘give protection’ bent Candidate’
Calcutta High Court directs state to provide personal security to Congress candidate of Ward 16 Rabi Sahai for seven days. Saha had approached the court complaining of police inaction after being beaten up on the day of polling. The High Court also directed Saha’s statement to be recorded under IPC 164 by a judicial magistrate.
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