SEC decides to hold civic elections in 108 municipalities on Feb 27, calls all-party meet

Kolkata: The State Election Commission (SEC) has called an all party meeting on Wednesday to discuss various issues related to the forthcoming civic polls as reported. SEC has decided to conduct civic polls in 108 municipalities on February 27.

State BJP had urged the SEC to postpone the civic polls by four weeks but the Commission has already rejected the BJP's plea. It has been scheduled that the municipalities will go to poll on February 27.

It may be mentioned that SEC on January 15, pushed back polls in four municipal corporations by three weeks and announced that elections will be conducted on February 12.The Calcutta High Court also urged the SEC to postpone the civic polls by 4 to 6 weeks given the surge in Covid cases. The poll panel had earlier announced that there will be elections in four municipal corporations — Asansol, Bidhannagar, Siliguri and Chandannagar on January 22 and the results were scheduled to be announced on January 25.

Four corporation elections which were earlier scheduled for January 22, had finally been postponed to February 12 due to a sudden spike in Covid cases. The results were scheduled to be released on February 14. The elections in other civic bodies have been scheduled to take place on February 27.

Incidentally, the SEC decided to hold an all party meeting a day after a contempt of court had been filed in the Calcutta High Court against the State Election Commission in connection with Civic polls in four municipalities. The case has been filed in the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava.

A PIL was earlier filed in Calcutta High Court on pleading for postponement of the election because of the escalating Covid situation. The division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava while hearing the PIL asked the state and the Commission to file their affidavits regarding the same.