Kolkata: West Bengal Election Commission announced that Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) polls will be held on December 19 and also mentioned that the model code of conduct for the election has started from November 25.
Addressing a press conference, State Election Commissioner Saurav Das said that the election of KMC will be on December 19 and the counting will be on December 21 and also that since West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar didn’t sign for which election of Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) will not be held along with KMC.
“We will issue a separate notification for that. The entire polling process has to be completed by December 22. From today onwards, the Model Code of Conduct is implemented. We have no announcement of HMC yet,” said Das.
Das further mentioned that there are a total of 40,48,352 voters under KMC.
“There will be 4,742 polling booths. The filing of nomination starts from today and will continue till December 1 and the last date of withdrawing nomination is on December 4. There are 144 wards. There will be small street corner campaigns and big meetings will be at big grounds and the campaigning will end 72 hours before the poll,” mentioned Das.
Notably, the ruling Trinamool Congress wanted to hold KMC and HMC polls on December 19.
It can be recalled that no sooner had the TMC announced separate elections for these two municipal corporations, the BJP cried foul asking to hold all the civic polls together.
West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar said that the saffron camp will move the Supreme Court seeking civic polls in all the municipalities together.
“A case is pending in the apex court and the hearing is due on November 29. We will again move the court asking all the civic polls together,” said Sukanta.
Incidentally, the BJP has lost all the 16 wards under KMC in the recently concluded Assembly polls.
Welcoming the notification, KMC chairperson Firhad Hakim, said the party is ready to contest the polls.
“We are ready for the elections and are confident of winning the KMC for the third consecutive time. We serve people round the year so we are sure to win,” said Hakim.
Meanwhile, the Left Front is likely to announce their candidates on Friday leaving 16 seats owing to alliance with Congress.
According to Congress sources, the talks of alliance will be at the local level and won’t be discussed in the centre.
