News Analysis India

Tag: Pratap Banerjee

  • Pratap Banerjee appointed BJP’s Kolkata civic poll management panel in-charge

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: The BJP’s West Bengal unit on Sunday appointed state vice-president Pratap Banerjee as the in-charge of the upcoming Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) election management committee of the party.

    The proposed date for the elections to KMC, as well as Howrah Municipal Corporation, is December 19.

    The notification is yet to be issued.

    “Pratap Banerjee, state vice-president, has been appointed as in-charge of upcoming Kolkata Municipal Corporation election management committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party, WB,” state unit president Sukanta Majumdar said in a statement.

    The BJP has moved the Calcutta High Court seeking that poll to all municipal bodies where it is due be held together on a single day.

    The case is pending.

    The five-year term of elected representatives who run West Bengal’s 112 municipalities and corporations ended in the last two years, but elections could not be held due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    These civic bodies are being run by administrators appointed by the state government.

  • BJP demands simultaneous municipality and municipal corporation polls in West Bengal in February

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: BJP on Tuesday demanded simultaneous election to municipalities and municipal corporations in West Bengal in February and deployment of central forces for it. State BJP vice-president Pratap Banerjee told reporters that the party has filed a petition in the court with this demand and a plea to the judiciary to intervene.

    “We have serious apprehension that if the civic bodies election is held under the supervision of state police and administration it will not be free and fair. Everyone remembers the 2018 panchayat poll when a large number of people could not cast their votes and opposition candidates were beaten up and threatened by the Trinamool Congress. We do not want a rerun of it”, he said.

    Banerjee said that in the past 10 years under TMC rule only in 2011 the municipal election was held in a free and fair manner. Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumder too demanded that election in municipalities and municipal corporations be held together.

    “Don’t understand why the state is intent on holding these polls separately. This (TMC) government has stalled these polls for a long time and appointed administrators from its own camp depriving lakhs of voters the opportunity to vote,” he said.

    West Bengal Minister of State for Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Chandrima Bhattacharya had said that last week that talks are on to with State Election Commission to hold the Municipal and corporation polls in the coming days.

    There were reports that the state government recommended to the SEC for holding polls in Kolkata, Howrah and Bidhannagar municipal corporations on December 19 and in all municipalities of the state in January-February.

    Election to 112 municipalities and five municipal corporations are overdue in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.