State election commission has childish attitude: State

KOLKATA: The state election commission (SEC) has an arbitrary and childish attitude on holding panchayat elections, argued advocate general BimalChatterjee during Friday's hearing on the SEC's petition in the Calcutta high court challenging the constitutional validity of Section 42 of the West BengalPanchayat Elections Act.
Chatterjee further argued that the SEC had not clarified its basis for demanding 800 companies of paramilitary force to hold the polls in any of its correspondence with the state."Moreover, the availability of central forces should be considered while seeking them for polls," said Chatterjee.
The advocate general contended that the state always said it had adequate armed force for holding a peaceful election. But SEC stuck to its demand for 800 companies of central forces. "I do not know the reason behind this abnormal demand," Chatterjee said in court.
He also said that the SEC has not prepared any map for its demand to hold the election in four phases. "This shows how unprepared the SEC is," Chatterjee said, adding that there was no map prepared on deployment of central forces for the phases. "Only blaming the government is the focus of the SEC petition," Chatterjee argued and pleaded that it should not be taken into consideration. The hearing will resume on Tuesday.