The West Bengal government may propose to the State Election Commission to postpone elections to four municipal corporations in the state after the Calcutta High Court asked the Election Commission to take a decision within 48 hours.
Sources told News18.com that the government may send a proposal to the State Election Commission to postpone the civic polls for two weeks amid rising cases of Kovid-19 in the state. The poll panel is scheduled to hold a meeting in Kolkata with state government representatives and officials of the state disaster management response team on the issue.
The Calcutta High Court on Friday asked the West Bengal State Election Commission to consider postponing civic polls in Asansol, Bidhannagar, Siliguri and Chandannagar by at least four to six weeks, giving it 48 hours to present its case. be given time. given time.
A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava was hearing a PIL filed by Bimal Bhattacharya, which argued that in view of the escalating COVID-19 situation, civil elections should be postponed.
The state election commission had announced that elections to the four municipalities would be held on January 22 and the counting of votes would take place on January 25. Sources said the state government is likely to propose that the election be postponed to February 12. , ,
Political parties had also demanded postponement of the elections in view of the increasing Kovid-19 infection in the state.
“The court has almost said that the State Election Commission should postpone the election. Let’s see what happens… We have given a letter to the Election Commission to postpone the elections twice because in this situation, it is not possible to continue with the elections,” said BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had also recently said: “Right now, nothing should happen in the coming two months. I personally feel that our priority now should be to fight Covid.
On Friday, West Bengal reported 22,645 new Covid-19 cases with a positivity rate of 31.14%. This number is expected to increase further with the ongoing Gangasagar Mela.
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