Panchayat elections in West Bengal next month: All you need to know

West Bengal has a total of 3,317 gram panchayats. During the state’s three-tier Panchayat polls, 928 seats across 22 Zilla Parishads, 9,730 Panchayat Samiti seats, and 63,229 Gram Panchayats seats will witness contests.

The State Election Commission on June 8 notified that the nomination for the panchayat polls has to be during the period from June 9 till June 15. The Opposition parties however moved the Calcutta High Court seeking extension of dates for filing nominations. During the hearing on June 9, the Calcutta HC Division Bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya urged the SEC to extend the nomination period and observed that the time given for filing nominations for the three-tier rural elections was “prima facie inadequate”. The State Election Commission, in an affidavit, however, told the High Court on Monday that it could extend the last date for filing nominations by only a day to June 16.

The Calcutta HC reserved its order on the bunch of PILs, saying “it shall issue appropriate directions to ensure that the nominations are filed in a proper manner”. The court is likely to pass its order on Tuesday.

Along with asking to extend the nomination period, the Calcutta HC also urged the SEC TO postpone the panchayat polls. However, the court did not give any final order and made this observation while hearing PIL petitions filed by Opposition parties.

The counting of votes polled in the West Bengal Panchayat elections will take place on July 11.

Looking forward to the Lok Sabha elections scheduled next year, the Panchayat elections will be a litmus test for the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Left-Congress alliance in the state.

Despite prohibitory orders in force around nomination centres, West Bengal is witnessing several incidents of violence with the Opposition accusing the ruling TMC of preventing their candidates from filing nomination papers. The places that reportedly witnessed violence include Domkal in Murshidabad district, Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district, Minakhan in North 24 Parganas district, Labhpur and Nanoor in Birbhum district,  Barsul in East Burdwan district, Jamuria in West Burdwan district, and Sonamukhi in Bankura district.

State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha, announcing the election schedule on June 8, had said the state possesses an adequate police force to ensure fair and transparent elections. "We should have complete trust in the state police,” he added. However, he did not directly comment whether the elections would be conducted under the supervision of central forces, as demanded by opposition parties.

A day after the SEC announced the panchayat poll dates, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Leader of the Opposition in Assembly and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari had filed PILs in the High Court, seeking deployment of central paramilitary forces during the election.

After reports of violence since the nomination for the July 8 panchayat elections in West Bengal began, the SEC Sunday directed district administrations to impose prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC in the vicinity of nomination centres from Monday in order to “maintain the law-and-order situation during the nomination process”. The state poll panel has also ordered videography of the entire nomination process.

Chowdhury’s counsel and Congress leader Kaustav Bagchi said: “We told the High Court that there is a dearth of police officers in the state to conduct the election. We also said that if central forces were deployed from the very beginning then it would have given voters confidence. It also would have prevented such large-scale violence."

In the 2018 rural polls, the TMC won 90 per cent of the Panchayat seats in the state and all 22 Zilla Parishads. However, the voting was marred by widespread violence and malpractices, with the opposition alleging that they were prevented from filing nominations at several seats.

In 2013, the panchayat polls in state were held with central forces in charge of the security at every polling booth. The TMC, which had been in power for two years at that time, won over 85 per cent of the seats. The opposition opposition however alleged malpractices by the ruling TMC despite presence of central forces at the polling stations.