New Delhi: Polling for all 144 wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation began today amid tight security and Covid-19 protocols, reported ANI. The polling was taking place at 1,776 polling stations across the city. The election for Kolkata Municipal Corporation were scheduled to be held in the year 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Counting of the votes will take place on December 21.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal unit had recently approached the Supreme Court challenging an order by a division bench of the Calcutta High Court which had rejected the plea to deploy to Central Forces during the civic polls. The Party had earlier approached the Supreme Court regarding the deployment of Central Forces. But the Court on Monday had refused to entertain the petition and asked the Party to approach Calcutta High Court.
Appearing for the BJP, senior advocate Maninder Singh told the bench that the Party candidates were being threatened to withdraw their candidature from the civic polls and that there was a widespread threat of violence.
As reported by ANI, the plea stated that the threats and violence "cast grave infractions on the constitutional mandate of conducting the free, fair, and democratic election."
Earlier the West Bengal BJP had urged the Election Commission to bar Trinamool Congress MLA Vivek Gupta from campaigning and to file an FIR against him for allegedly violating the model code of conduct.
The West Bengal BJP in a letter to the Election Commissioner alleged that TMC MLA Vivek Gupta violated the model code of conduct by distributing laptops in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. The state BJP unit also demanded to bar TMC candidate for ward no 42 Mahesh Sharma on grounds of violating the model code of conduct.