The West Bengal State Election Commission in a notification issued on Thursday announced that the Kolkata Municipality Election will be held on 19 December.
While the ruling party had requested to hold the Kolkata Municipality vote on December 19, the BJP had filed a case in the Calcutta High Court regarding the pre-vote. The BJP asked why all the municipal polls in the state would not be held on the same day. The hearing of the case was postponed on Wednesday. As a result, speculation was rife that the announcement of the pre-poll announcement could be made on Thursday. Finally, a notification was issued by the Election Commission on the same day.
The Election Commission informed in a press conference that elections will be held in 144 wards. There are 4,842 main polling booths and 365 auxiliary polling booths. The number of voters is 40,46,352. The filing of nominations started on Thursday and December 1 is the last day to submit nominations.
Meanwhile, the last day for withdrawal of nomination is December 4. December 12 is the day of re-election. The voting process will be completed by December 22. The date of the count will also be announced in the next two days. The Model Code of Conduct has been implemented.
While, in Howrah and Bali, the state government also wanted a pre-vote, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has not signed the bill yet. On Thursday, the State Election Commission fixed the date for the Kolkata pre-poll only.
Meanwhile, the Governor has not yet signed the Howrah Municipality (Amendment) Bill 2021, a bill that has been passed in the Legislative Assembly to separate Bali from Howrah Municipality. In that case, a complication is created.
Dhankhar gave a strong message to the commission regarding the pre-vote. “The state election commission should play a neutral and effective role, it should not work as a branch of the state government, it should not work, as they say,” the governor said. Among them, the Election Commission announced the date of the pre-poll only in Kolkata.
It is to be noted that even though the term has expired, there has been no pre-poll in the state since 2016. As many as 118 municipal corporations and municipalities in the state have votes left. But, at first, the state wanted to vote for only two Purnigams. Opposition groups called for a boycott of the assembly. The BJP and CPM protested the decision. At the same time, the BJP has gone to court to demand all the pre-polls in the state. But in the end, the commission accepted the state’s decision.
