Kolkata: Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday met the State Election Commissioner Saurab Das and asked him to conduct a repoll at places where there was violence during the civic polls.
According to Governor House sources, the Election Commissioner had assured that after talking with the District Magistrates he will look into the matter.
“SEC Saurab Das briefed Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar for over an hour regarding issues connected to the municipal poll process. SEC has been indicated to take all steps to ensure poll fairness and not holding elections to Howrah Municipality is a failure of constitutional duty,” said the Governor House sources.
Meanwhile, according to SEC sources, two booths will go for repoll on Tuesday and the overall counting will be on March 3.
No sooner did SEC sources say about repoll in only two booths, political slugfest started between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Opposition.
Senior CPI (M) leader Sujan Chakraborty claimed that SEC has reduced themselves to the status of a ‘joker’ by just instructing repoll in only two wards.
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that SEC and Nabanna are synonymous.
“Nabanna and SEC are two brothers as whatever is instructed by the state secretariat the SEC just says that,” claimed Chowdhury.
State BJP president sarcastically claimed that the SEC should not have allowed for even repoll in two wards.
Without naming Election Commissioner Saurav Das, poll analyst Biswanath Chakraborty also slammed the decision and claimed that incidents of violence across the state were seen during the civic polls at 108 municipal bodies.
