Calcutta High Court on Wednesday asked the Bengal government and the State Election Commission to inform it by Monday about its plans to conduct polls pending in 112 civic bodies.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava was hearing a petition moved by the BJP seeking the court’s direction to the government and the commission to hold the civic polls in a single phase.

Appearing for the commission, lawyer Jayanta Mitra told the court that since the rate of vaccination in Calcutta was higher than other municipal areas, his client had decided to hold a civic poll first in the city as a test case.

Mitra also said logistic issues had prompted the commission not to hold polls to the 112 civic bodies in a single phase. “Due to shortage of EVMs and other logistic support, elections in the other municipalities would have to be conducted in phases,” Mitra said.

Mitra said the commission required 30,073 EVMs to hold polls in a single phase but it had only 15,600 voting machines at its disposal. The bench asked in that case, why wasn’t the commission holding the civic polls in two phases.

Responding to the query from the bench, Mitra said even that was not possible because issues of manpower were involved in holding the polls. This apart, unlike Calcutta the rate of vaccination was low in the districts and the Covid situation had to be kept in mind by the CEC while planning the civic polls, Mitra told the court.

After hearing the arguments, the court asked both the government and the commission to inform on Monday in how many phases they wanted to conduct the civic elections.

Suvendu case

The high Court on Wednesday shifted the venue of a defamation case moved by Trinamul MP Abhishek Banerjee against BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari from a Burdwan court to the Calcutta City Civil Court.