The CPM on Tuesday moved a PIL in Calcutta High Court against the State Election Commission’s decision not to hold polls to the Howrah civic body on January 22.

The PIL filed by advocate Sabyasachi Bhattacharya argued that the state poll panel had submitted before court that elections to five civic bodies, including Howrah, will be held on January 22. But on Monday, the panel announced polls to only four civic bodies — Bidhannagar, Asansol, Chandernagore and Siliguri.

Bhattacharya sent an email to Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava requesting his PIL be heard on Tuesday evening. But the matter will be heard on Wednesday or Thursday.

“How can the (state poll) commission not follow what it said in front of the honourable court?” Bhattacharya told The Telegraph.

The state government intends to bifurcate the Howrah corporation into two and separate 16 wards of the erstwhile Bally municipality. The Assembly passed a legislation on it, but the bill awaits the governor’s nod, a bureaucrat said, citing this as the reason for the delay in Howrah polls.

On Tuesday, the Congress took out a rally from Jadubabur Bazar in South Calcutta on Tuesday, at a time the Trinamul board was taking oath in the CMC, against alleged irregularities of the ruling party on the day of the civic polls in Calcutta.

The Howrah issue has being simmering since Monday, when the Left parties, along with the Congress and BJP, walked out of an all-party meeting convened by the state poll panel after they were told that polls to Howrah won’t be held on January 22.

They questioned how the panel could decide not to follow a submission it had made itself in the court.

The Left Front will hold protests and demonstrations in front of the state poll panel’s office in Calcutta from Wednesday. Its media statement said the protest would be “against the partisan attitude of the Commission... and its role of acting as an assistant of the Trinamul Congress through vote loot, violence and rigging.…”