The high court on Thursday rejected the BJP’s plea to direct the State Election Commission to deploy central forces at the Calcutta civic polls scheduled for Sunday.

Rejecting the BJP’s plea, the single bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha observed that the court was hopeful that the state police would be able to conduct the polls peacefully.

The BJP has, however, moved a division bench of the high court against the order of the single bench. The division bench is likely to hear the case on Friday.

Though the state BJP leaders tried to put up a brave face to counter this humiliation, they were evidently shielding themselves with legal technicalities. BJP MLA and leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the court hadn’t quashed their plea but left the decision on poll security on the poll panel. “The court hadn’t technically quashed our plea…. In fact the same bench on Thursday itself in another case filed by one of our candidates has ordered in our favour,” Suvendu said.

The BJP had moved the Supreme Court on Monday with a similar plea for central forces. There, a bench of Justice Nageswara Rao and Justice B.R. Gavai refused to entertain the plea and directed the party’s lawyer, senior advocate Maninder Singh, to approach Calcutta High Court instead. Eventually, the saffron camp’s plea was quashed by the high court on Thursday.

In its petition, the BJP alleged that four of its candidates had been heckled or harassed by Trinamul supporters, a claim strongly contested by the State Election Commission. The state poll commission said not a single such complaint had been lodged with them by the party or its candidates since December 1.

The counsel for the poll panel also said that installation of CCTV cameras in every single booth, where polling will take place on December 19, is being done according to a court order and added that all decisions regarding security are being taken after consulting police and the bureaucrats. An updated report on the CCTVs cameras was also placed before the bench.

Appearing for the BJP, advocate S.K. Kapoor claimed that the state governmentfailed to provide adequate security for the electorate.

However, the state government’s lawyer said 5,000 personnel from Calcutta Police and 3,000 from the state police would be deployed on the day of Calcutta Municipal Corporation polls.

Justice Mantha asked the state poll panel to direct the police to properly investigate any complaint of malpractices during the polls. He also said an adequate penalty must be awarded to offenders, if proven guilty of disrupting the poll process by any means.

Roopa’s support

The BJP's Rajya Sabha member Roopa Ganguly added to BJP’s embarrassment when on Wednesday she took to her Facebook account to pledge support for the Independent candidate of ward No 86, Gaurav Biswas, husband of deceased BJP councillor Tista Biswas. He had hoped the BJP would field him. Ganguly had also wanted it, but it did not materialise.

Roopa Ganguly. File photo

In her post on Wednesday, Ganguly called herself a karyakarta of the BJP and said that she could be thrown out, suspended from the party or asked to show cause. “But (the party) cannot compel me to leave the party,” she wrote. She also wrote she now felt she wasn't “fit to be a politician”.

Ganguly has been outraged with Bengal BJP as she was not consulted before candidates were decided upon. She had previously left a virtual party meeting midway over her differences regarding the candidate list.