Stand-off over panchayat polls continues

The stand-off between the West Bengal government and the State Election Commission continued today with the government refusing to budge from its decision to hold the panchayat elections in two phases and the SEC yet to notify the polls.
The SEC said, it received the state government's letter in reply to its earlier communication on the polls, but declined to divulge if the polls will be notified shortly, or not.
"Received the letter. We are studying. That much," Commission's secretary Tapas Roy told PTI cryptically when asked if it is in possession of the state government's reply to its previous communication and if the poll panel will issue the notification during the day.

Earlier, state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee said, "We will be replying to the SEC's letter hoping that it will issue the poll notification today itself, so that panchayat elections can be held on April 26 and 30 as announced by the state government."
Asked about the government's reply to the poll panel, Mukherjee said, "There has been no change in our decision on conducting the panchayat polls and we have replied to certain queries raised by the Commission with regard to transfers of SDOs and BDOs."
Refusing to divulge the contents of the SEC's letter, the Minister rejected the state poll panel's suggestions of deploying para-military forces during the elections.

"We don't find any justification in deploying para-military forces to conduct the rural polls," Mukherjee said adding that the notification will help the government procure forces from other states for the elections.
Unless the Commission issued the notification, the state government can't seek forces from other states with the Centre's permission, as per existing rules.
"We don't approve of deploying 800 companies of para-military forces and burden ourselves with an expense of Rs 400 crore...It is absurd," the Minister said.