The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders seeking deployment of central forces in the West Bengal Civic polls.
A bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Surya Kant dismissed the special leave petition filed by the BJP leaders Mousumi Roy and Pratap Banerjee against the order of the Calcutta High Court. The court said that it is not inclined to interfere with the decision of Calcutta high court.
Earlier, the Calcutta High Court had rejected the petition of the BJP leaders and refused to issue directions for the deployment of Central forces for the upcoming elections to the 108 municipalities of West Bengal.
On Wednesday, the bench of the Calcutta High Court had directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to assess the ground situation by collection information in respect of the conditions prevailing in the Municipalities.
The court had directed the SEC to hold a joint meeting with the officials of the Bengal government within 24 hours in order to take decision with respect to the deployment of paramilitary forces during the local polls in Bengal which is scheduled to be held on February 27.
The High Court had also mentioned that if it is decided that Central forces will not be deployed then the State Election Commissioner (SEC) would be held personally responsible to ensure that no violence takes place during the elections and that there is peaceful conduct of elections in the state.
Senior Advocate PS Patwalia, appearing for the petitioner, argued that there were widespread reports of violence during the previous phases of elections and the State Election Commission was biased towards the ruling party All Indian Trinamool Congress.
“The SEC relies on the newspaper ‘Joy Bangla’ the official newspaper of the Trinamool Congress. We had placed on record the reports of The Hindu, the New Indian Express etc about the violence.”
He further added that number of cases of violence were reported, incidents have been reported in the media of false voting law and order situation has arisen.
“The elections have been plagued with violence, when the candidate for BJP raised protest against the presence of TMC members inside the booth, the BJP candidate was threatened with dire consequences, widespread instances of protest, rigging, false voting.”
However, the bench dismissed the plea of BJP leaders.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta tried to intervene on behalf of the Centre, he said during Tripura Municipal election case, his opinion was sought and the Centre agreed to deploy Central forces and same can be done here too.
“Court has decided not to entertain this plea. But in the Tripura elections matter, the court had asked if the government can do something. I may submit that we have no problems in deploying the forces.”
Justice Chandrachud rejected the arguments and said, “Thank you, Mr Solicitor.”
The plea was filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking deployment of central forces for the upcoming elections to the remaining 108 municipalities. The party in its plea alleged that in the recent municipal elections in West Bengal, violence took place and a huge number of party workers of Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties were killed by the TMC goons.