‘EC has crossed all limits’

“The commission has crossed all legal limits and this will lead to constitutional crisis for which only they will be responsible. Conducting the elections falls entirely in the domain of the state government and the commission has got nothing to do with it. In addition to that,law and order is a state subject and we do not need central forces as there had not been any major deterioration in the law and order situation here,’’ Mukul Roy,general secretary of the party,told The Indian Express.

Minister for Panchayat and Rural Development Subrata Mukherjee,however,was not as harsh as Roy. “What we do will be strictly in accordance with the Panchayat Act,” Mukherjee said.

Though the EC did not comment on the issue,sources said it was extremely unhappy over the turn of events. “It seems things are snowballing into a court case – something that never happened in the state earlier,” a commission official told The Indian Express.

The state government may after all go ahead with issuing the notification after March 15,the day vote on account is passed in the Assembly. According to Section 42 of Panchayat Act,while the state government can issue the notification,Section 43 of the Act says the commission can ask the government to review it. But it is not clearly written what happens if the government sticks to its stand.

The CPM criticised Roy’s statement saying he should not have said all this for the best tradition of democracy. “The statement was most unfortunate. It shows they have scant regard for democracy,” Suryakanta Mishra,Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly said.