The Bharatiya Janata Party has moved the Supreme Court, challenging the Calcutta High Court’s rejection of its plea for deploying Central Armed Police Force personnel during the Kolkata civic body elections, which are scheduled to take place on Sunday, ANI reported.
The BJP has sought an urgent hearing of the matter on Saturday, the party’s advocate Bikash Singh told The Times of India.
The Calcutta High Court had rejected the BJP’s petition on Thursday, saying that there was not enough material in its appeal “which furnishes the ground for deployment of central paramilitary forces” for the Kolkata elections, the newspaper reported.
The BJP had claimed that its candidates for the civic elections were being threatened and pressured into withdrawing nominations. The candidates claimed that the West Bengal Police did not respond to their complaints, Live Law reported.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal government told the court that it had held a meeting with the state Election Commission to ensure that the civic elections take place without any violence.
Though it rejected the BJP’s petition, the Calcutta High Court directed the police to act on the complaints of the party’s candidates. The court said additional security must be granted to the petitioners after their complaints are reviewed.
The commissioner of police was also directed to ensure adequate security in Kolkata during voting on December 19 to ensure free and fair elections.
Advocate General SN Mookherji informed the court that 18,000 of the 27,000 officers in the Kolkata Police and 5,000 more policemen had been deployed for the elections, according to The Times of India.
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