The Calcutta high court had in its order on Friday emphasised the necessity of holding the panchayat elections before the term of the present panchayats ended in June. “To be or not to be is not the question, the panchayat election has to be held on time,” Justice Biswanath Somadder said in his ruling.
However, in view of the unyielding attitude of the Mamata Banerjee government, the possibility of the polls being held in June appears remote. The panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee who had on Friday said that the government would challenge the high court order in a division bench of the high court, on Saturday further upped his ante. “If the ruling of the division bench also goes against us, then we will go to the Supreme Court,” he announced.
Little wonder that all Opposition parties have alleged that the state government was hell bent on stalling the rural polls. “You do not need to have a knowledge of rocket science to understand why Ms Banerjee dreads the prospects of panchayat polls at this juncture. Her government has failed on all fronts in the past two years making the people of Bengal who had voted for her party with enormous expectations totally disillusioned. The situation has been aggravated by the Saradha default which has triggered wide-spread public anger. Ms Banerjee knows that if panchayat polls are held on time, the people will totally reject her party because they have now seen the true faces of the Trinamul Congress leaders,” the state Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya said. The Congress took out a protest rally from Park Street to Hazra demanding action against Trinamul Congress leaders involved in the chit fund scam.
Ironically, hours after the high court order which came as a huge blow to her government, Ms Banerjee in a public rally in Burdwan had announced that the polls would be held at the right time. “This is typical Mamata Banerjee double-speak.