Kolkata: The West Bengal Assembly election got over on April 29, but the spotlight refuses to move away from the only state where polling was held in two phases.
Amid tension, complaints and counter complaints, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday approached the Supreme Court, challenging the Election Commission India’s (ECI) decision to appoint only Central government and Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) employees as counting supervisors and assistants for May 4.
Along with West Bengal, votes will be counted for recent elections held in Assam, Tamil Nadu, Keralam and Puducherry on May 4.
Following TMC’s request, Chief Justice of India (
CJI) Surya Kant gave directions for an urgent hearing of the matter on Saturday. The plea has been listed before a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi.
On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court dismissed TMC’s petition challenging the exclusion of state employees from vote-counting supervising duty.
In his ruling, Justice Krishna Rao held that there was no illegality in the ECI’s decision to appoint counting supervisors and assistants from Central government and PSU employees instead of state government staff.
“It is the prerogative of the office of the EC to appoint the counting supervisor and counting assistant either from the state government or the central government,” the high court had observed.
TMC had raised concerns that Central government employees could be influenced by the BJP, which is seeking to displace Mamata Banerjee’s government after a 15-year stint.
Mamata alleged that “observers from outside” and police officers unfamiliar with Bengal were being deployed in a manner that targeted TMC workers.