West Bengal Panchayat polls: HC reserves judgment on Oppositions petition on security

Calcutta High Court. Express Photo By Partha Paul

After hearing the Opposition’s petition seeking adequate security arrangements, the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Chief Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya on Tuesday reserved its judgment on the fate of the panchayat polls till Thursday.

The Congress, CPM, Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the state advocate general and counsels, all submitted their contentions before the court. The government and SEC submitted a security arrangement report. “The PIL was filed by the Congress. Today, CPM, BJP and PDS came to add themselves as parties to the PIL. The submissions concluded today…The state government has filed a security arrangement report before the court, which is a questionable one. We will evaluate the report…” lawyer and Congress leader Riju Ghoshal told The Indian Express.

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State BJP general secretary Pratap Banerjee said, “We do not want to postpone the election. We want to ensure safety and security of voters and our candidates.”

CPM leader and lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said, “The state government said they would deploy civic volunteers besides deploying state armed forces. We really don’t know how civic volunteers will protect voters on polling day.”