West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said she will abide by the Constitution after the Supreme Court rejected her government's plea for rescheduling panchayat polls in the state in view of Ramzan.
"The Supreme Court delivered a very good order. I respect all religions, all creeds and castes. I will go by the Constitution," she told reporters at the state secretariat here.
Ticking off her government for "dilly-dallying", the Supreme Court today refused to reschedule the dates of the panchayat polls which are to be conducted in five phases beginning from July 11 as per its direction.
A bench of justices A K Patnayak and Ranjan Gogoi, which had last week fixed the dates of poll, turned down the plea of state government and some NGOs seeking to reschedule the dates to keep the election process before or after the period of Ramzan which is is likely to start from July 10 and end on August 9.
The bench said it respects the sentiments of Muslim community but Constitution provision, for holding the election before tenure of Panchayat comes to an end, cannot be bypassed.
Meanwhile, the state law minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said the court order was "neither a win, nor a defeat" for the government. "We don't look upon it as such.
