On Saturday, the West Bengal administration and the State Election Commission filed a petition with the Supreme Court to challenge the High Court’s decision to authorise the deployment of federal military during the state’s panchayat elections.
The decision was made, according to sources within the Commission, following a meeting with the state’s legal counsel on Friday between senior officials of the State Election Commission and the government.
The SEC had been ordered by the Calcutta High Court to requisition and deploy central forces throughout West Bengal for the state’s Panchayat elections on Thursday within 48 hours.
The SEC was instructed to obey the requisition orders for all the districts that had been rocked by violence over the submission of nominations for the July 8 Panchayat elections by the division bench, led over by Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam. No significant actions have been made after the injunction was passed on June 13 was observed during the hearing.
Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a congressman, were among the opposition leaders who went before the court to ask for the deployment of federal soldiers to ensure free and fair elections. They based their plea on incidents of widespread violence that occurred during the Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections in 2021 and the municipal elections in 2022.
The filing of nominations took place while unrest persisted in several areas of West Bengal. Violence has interfered with the filing process in several parts of the state since it started on June 9th.
The ruling TMC has been charged by the opposition parties, including the BJP, Congress, and CPI (M), with using coercive methods to stop them from submitting their candidates for office.
Post Your Comments