The Calcutta High Court today proposed a five-phase panchayat election and asked both the West Bengal government and State Election Commission to calculate availability and requirement of security forces per phase and come up with their positions tomorrow.
The grass-root polls in the state were at present scheduled to be held in three phases on July 2, July 6 and July 9, while the state government today sought a four-phase election before the HC.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Joymalyo Bagchi, hearing an application by the SEC seeking adequate security forces to hold free and fair polls, proposed a five-phase election to cope with the shortage, which it described as acute.
Proposing that the elections be held on July two, four, six, eight and nine, the court asked the government and the SEC to discuss this and come up with their stand later in the day.
Following discussions between the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and the Director General of Police and State Election Commissioner Mira Pandey, the matter was taken up again in the court.
The state proposed four-phase elections on July two, four, six and nine.
The SEC said that without knowing about the availability of forces, it could not say anything about the phases.
SEC senior counsel S Pal submitted that it would not be possible to hold the polls even if it was re-phased if adequate forces were not provided.
At this, the court asked both the state and the SEC to calculate the availability and requirement as per phases and come up with their position tomorrow, when the matter would be heard again.
