Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday rejected BJP's plea seeking a stay on the counting of votes polled in the Contai Municipal Corporation elections in West Bengal.
BJP leader Soumendu Adhikari had filed public interest litigation on Monday alleging that the police and State Election Commission (SEC) had failed to perform their role to contain rigging and attacks and called for "re-polling" in the state under the supervision of central police force. Elections to 108 municipalities in the State including the Contai municipality took place on February 27.
A Division Bench, comprising Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, refused to grant the prayer made by the BJP seeking a stay on the counting of votes pertaining to the Contai Municipality elections which is scheduled to take place on March 2. The court also directed the SEC to take adequate steps to preserve CCTV cameras and CCTV footage pertaining to elections of the Contai municipality.
The Bench also underscored that any action taken in the meantime will be subject to the final outcome of this writ petition.
Pertinently, the Court also allowed the BJP to implead the ECI as a party to the instant proceedings since a prayer has been made by the BJP seeking forensic audit of CCTV footage by ECI in its capacity as an independent investigating agency in order to rule out any case of tampering.