Opposition parties in Bengal on Tuesday hailed the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the pleas against the deployment of central forces for the rural polls, but it emerged later in the day that the State Election Commission was planning to requisition absurdly inadequate forces.

Not long after the BJP, the CPM, and the Congress began hailing the Supreme Court’s decision against amending the high court judgment, the commission worked out a requisition plan. The plan was to seek from the Narendra Modi government no more than one company (usually comprising up to 110 personnel) each for 22 Bengal districts (over 61,000 booths between them).

The BJP labelled “egregious” the commission’s “contemptuous defiance”.

“The commission is turning this into a farce. It is proving its autocratic attitude and tendency to help Trinamul win as many seats as possible. The court is overseeing the matter and we are hopeful that this will be resolved as well. The people are ready to resist them and are with us,” said BJP state chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya in the evening.

In the afternoon, the party’s IT cell chief and Bengal co-minder Amit Malviya had celebrated the apex court’s decision.

“Election can’t be an excuse for violence, says Supreme Court while dismissing West Bengal EC’s SLP, challenging the Calcutta High Court’s order asking for deployment of central forces. This is a resounding defeat for Mamata Banerjee, who had made Panchayat Poll a prestige issue and a launch pad for her ‘nephew’,” Malviya had tweeted.

The CPM, some of whose leaders had been demanding central force presence in every booth or premises, called out the commission for drawing up such a plan.

“The commission, being an independent, autonomous body, has to work in favour of the people and not the ruling establishment,” said central committee member Samik Lahiri.“It is ignominious for the commission to be willing to get reprimanded by the highest courts of the land,” he added.

The Congress, which had in the afternoon lauded the apex court ruling as a “blessing” for every lover of democracy in Bengal, reacted with disappointment in the evening.

“This is a joke…. The court must look into this,” said state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, one of the petitioners in the original case before the high court that had resulted in the verdict in favour of central forces.

Asked about the glaring inadequacy of the commission’s a-company-a-district plan for central forces, Trinamul Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said the poll panel’s confidence was unsurprising.