In a significant development with regard to the holding of bypolls in West Bengal, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra on Wednesday held a virtual meeting with Chief Secretary H.K. Diwedi, in the presence of officials from the state poll panel.

The virtual meeting was conducted with an intention to understand the ground situation and the preparedness of the state with regard to holding by-elections in seven Assembly constituencies of the state.

Though no one said anything officially, sources in the CEO’s office said that the commission wanted to know about three things before taking any step regarding the announcement of poll dates.

“The Commission wanted to know about the law and order situation in the state. Secondly, it had queries on the recent flood situation in Bengal. And finally, the present Covid situation in the state. If the Commission is satisfied on these three areas, it might think of announcing the poll dates,” a senior official at the CEO’s office said.

The state government officials, on their part, have informed the Commission that Bengal is fully-prepared to conduct the polls.

“The festive season will continue from October 10-24, and it will be impossible to conduct the elections at that time. So the state has asked the Commission to conduct the polls before the beginning of the festive season. We still have more than one month left and if the Commission issues the notification now, it will be possible to conduct the polls before Durga puja,” a senior state government official said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was at Panagar in East Midnapore district on Wednesday to inaugurate an industrial park, later returned to the state secretariat at Nabanna and held a meeting with Chief Secretary Diwedi.

It is likely that she was apprised of the details of the meeting with the CEC.

Though the BJP is not in favour of conducting the bypolls amid the pandemic situation, the Trinamool Congress strongly advocates holding of polls.

Recently, a five-member delegation of Trinamool Congress MPs comprising Sougata Roy, Jwahar Sircar, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sajda Ahmed and Mohua Moitra, had met the CEC and urged for conducting the polls.

Trinamool is pressing hard for the by-elections because Mamata Banerjee, who had unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls from Nandigram against BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, will have to get elected within six months from the announcement of Assembly poll results, which ends on November 2.

Seven Assembly seats are lying vacant in Bengal, including Bhawanipur in Kolkata where elected MLA Sovandeb Chattopadhyay has resigned from the post to make way for the Chief Minister.

The Dinhata and Santipur Assembly seats fell vacant after BJP leaders Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar resigned as MLAs to retain their Parliament memberships.

Similarly, elections could not be held in Samserganj and Jangipur in Murshidabad due to deaths of the candidates. The Kharda seat fell vacant in North 24-Parganas district after Trinamool candidate Kajal Sinha passed away before he could celebrate his victory.

The Gosaba seat also fell vacant after Trinamool’s Jayanta Naskar, who won the elections, succumbed to Covid-19 in June.

As per the ECI rules, elections can be conducted on the 24th day after the announcement of polling dates. Generally, the commission retains 10 days for taking the preparatory steps and the candidates get 14 days’ time to campaign.

Sources also said that even a large section within the Commission is willing to complete the poll process by the end of September. Getting government officials and staff for the purpose of elections will be extremely difficult during the festive month of October.