The poll was earlier scheduled to be held in three phases from 2 July. The state government has been locked in a legal tussle with the West Bengal state election commission (SEC) on various issues related to the panchayat polls for the past couple of months and the matter was in the Calcutta high court. The matter had reached the apex court earlier this week when the poll panel approached it for adequate security forces to hold free and fair elections in the state.
A bench of Justices AK Patnaik and Justice Ranjan Gogoi directed the SEC to hold the five-phase election on 11, 15, 19, 22 and 25 July. The court directed the West Bengal state government to provide 35,000 security personnel on an average for each phase of the election and rest of the requirement of security forces will be provided by the central government. Rescheduling the elections, the bench said all other consequential notifications are to be done by the concerned authorities as per the order.
West Bengal panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee welcomed the decision and said: ‘We are happy. Despite attempts to foil the conduct of polls by the state election commission (SEC) and the CPI(M), the verdict of the Supreme Court means we can go to polls’.
The SEC had approached the apex court seeking direction from it to the central and state governments for adequate security personnel during the elections. It had said it was not possible to hold violence-free elections in the state as enough security personnel were not available. Hearing the case earlier this week, the apex court had issued notices to the central and the state government seeking their response on how to meet the requirement of security personnel for panchayat elections.
The SEC counsel, during the hearing in the apex court earlier this week, had said that the poll body was ready to hold elections in more phases but security forces must be provided to it. The counsel said that the poll body needed around 2,41,000 security personnel out of which 1,40,00 should be armed.