Moral defeat for govt: Cong

CPM central committee member Shyamal Chakraborty said,“We welcome the order. But the state will resort to other legal recourse so that the panchayat elections can be delayed.”

He said that his party would give a fitting reply to the Trinamool Congress whenever the grassroots polls were held.

“Now that the High Court has upheld the SEC’s stand that the panchayat elections should be held in three phases with central armed police force,the polls should be held soon,” party politburo member Biman Basu told reporters in New Delhi.

The panchayat elections have to be held by June when the tenure of the rural bodies end.

Basu,who is in Delhi to attend the party’s Central Committee meeting from tomorrow,said if the polls are not held soon,then these crucial grass-root level rural bodies would be deprived of about Rs 8,000 crore worth of central funds. The Centre releases these funds only to elected panchayats.

‘SEC stand vindicated’

The Calcutta High Court order upholding the primacy of the SEC has vindicated its stand on the panchayat elections,state election commissioner Mira Pandey said today.

“The SEC’s stand has been vindicated by this order,” Pandey said,adding that the SEC would take further decisions after going through the order.

The court directed that the rural polls be held in three phases as desired by the SEC and directed the state government to provide the names of 400 observers from the IAS and WBCS executive cadre to the commission,as demanded by it,by tomorrow.