The West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) is preparing to file a review petition in the Calcutta High Court against the order of a Division Bench for the deployment of central armed forces in the state for the July 8 panchayat polls. “We are taking legal opinion. Probably on Thursday, we will file a review petition in the High Court,” a senior officer of the SEC told The Indian Express. According to sources, the SEC has a problem with the use of the term “central forces” in the High Court order, and would urge the Bench to change it to “armed forces” instead. “The state government did not agree with bringing in central forces. Instead of central forces, we are consulting with other states to send requisitions for armed forces to meet the inadequacy of armed forces for the poll process,” another SEC official added. As a result, the SEC, instead of making requisitions for central forces from the Union government, is already in talks with some non-BJP-ruled states for additional forces. “We have consulted with the governments in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh (– all non-BJP ruled states). In our preliminary talks, all these states have agreed to send their forces to West Bengal. The main focus of the High Court is to conduct free and fair elections for which more forces are required. The court never mentioned that we can make requisitions for only central forces. So, in order to conduct free and fair elections, we can bring in forces from other states also,” the official added. In its order on Tuesday, the Division Bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya, while hearing a bunch of PILs filed by Opposition leaders, said: “.we are of the view that the State Election Commission should and shall requisition the deployment of central forces to work in tandem with the police force of the State of West Bengal to ensure free and fair elections.” Citing the petitioners' contention that there is “inadequate police force” to cover all the polling stations when the elections are being held, the High Court said: “. wherever there is inadequacy of state police force, in all such areas the SEC shall requisition the deployment of paramilitary forces." Citing media reports on violence during the ongoing nomination process and reminding about the violence-marred 2018 panchayat elections, the court added that the poll panel “shall forthwith send requisition of deployment of Central forces for all areas declared sensitive”. The court also directed the SEC to videograph the entire voting process in booths lacking CCTV facilities and preserve the footage. The Commission has already ordered videography for the filing of nominations, scrutiny of nominations, withdrawal of candidates and the counting process. The Bench, however, refused to change the election schedule as sought by the petitioners and left it to the SEC to extend the deadline for the nomination process. In the three-tier panchayat election, approximately 5.67 crore voters are set to exercise their franchise to choose representatives for nearly 74,000 seats in zila parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats. The voting will take place on July 8, with the counting scheduled for July 11.
