The West Bengal government and the State Elect🐠ion Commission on Saturday jointly moved the Supreme Court challenging the high court order regarding deployment of central forces during panchayat polls in the state.
Tꦡhe Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the State Election Commission to requisition and deploy central forces across West Bengal for the July 8 panchayat elections in the state, in which more than five crore voters are expected to exercise their franchise to elect nearly 74,000 candidates in zilla par𝔉ishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats.
Violence ahead of polls
The state has been witnessing violence between political workers which on Friday left two dead and several injured of ꦑwhom one died in a hospital in🍌 the morning.
The semi-rural area of Bhangore in South 24 Parganas district, was also the scene of po🐻litical clashes earlier between Indian Secular Front (ISF) a party floated by a Muslim cleric and the ruling TMC.
Violence had also marred the nomination filing process on Thursday in several other districts in clashes between poli𓃲tical parties. In all five people died as a result of the violence.
The coౠurt on Thursday noted that no appreciable steps have been t𒁃aken ever since an order was passed by it on June 13 to deploy central forces in sensitive areas for the poll process.
Petitioners had prayed for the deployment of c♋entral forces for ensuring peaceful elections, claiming that the state had witnessed larꦡge-scale violence during municipal elections in 2022 and Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections in 2021.
Opposition parties have been alleging that the ruling Trinamool Congress supporters resorted to violence to prevent their candidates from filing nomination papers. The state however claimed befor🐬e the court that till Wednesday, more opposition candidates filed nominations than those of the ruling party.
Governor Dr CV Ananda Bose paid a visit to the state on Friday and said that measures must be taken end political violence and assured that "perpetrators would be permanent𒉰ly silenced" and “brought to book.”
Today, he summoned the State Election Commissioner (SEC) Rajiv𒁃a Sinha to Raj Bhavan to brief him about ಞthe situation, an official said.
