On Monday evening, a thunderstorm lashed Kolkata bringing temperatures down. And inside the courtroom at Kolkata High Court, a message from the division bench headed by Justice Sivagnaman brought some relief to petitioners seeking an extension of the deadline for filing nomination papers for contesting the upcoming rural elections. 

Having observed that the time allotted for submitting papers was prima-facie “inadequate”, the Court asked the West Bengal state election commission (SEC) to consider extending it by a few days. 

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Initially, the Court had suggested that the deadline for filing nominations be extended to June 21, with June 23 being the final day of scrutinizing the documents and June 26 being the final date for withdrawing nominations. 

The Court also asked SEC if the date of the polls could be pushed back from July 8 to July 14 as at least a 21-day window has to be given between the completion of the process of nomination and the polling dates. 

However, SEC on Monday said that it can only extend the deadline by one day without interrupting the election process.

Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, Trinamool MP and Calcutta High Court Advocate who is counsel for the state government in the matter told The Statesman, “I cannot comment on this until I present my argument in court in the next hearing in a day or two.” 

However, reportedly, the state government does not have an issue with the original timeframe suggested by the SEC.  

The Opposition has, however, hit out at the SEC claiming that the narrow timeframe would make it difficult for candidates to file. 

For those unversed, on June 9, the day after SEC announced the dates for the Panchayat polls, state Opposition leaders Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP and Adhir Ranjan Choudhury of the Congress had filed petitions contesting the timeframe. 

SEC had said that filing of nomination papers would be from June 9 to June 15 with a gap of one day in between, it being a Sunday and a holiday. While hearing the petitions, the division bench had noted that SEC’s five-day window for filing nomination papers was “inadequate”. The Court asked SEC to respond by June 12.

Commenting on the significance of Monday’s hearing, CPIM leader Sujan Chakraborty said, “Many candidates have already filed their nominations. If extensions of deadlines are allowed, it would serve to give more time not just to the Opposition parties but obviously even the ruling party. I think that it is being made out to be an Opposition demand but even the ruling party would benefit as many have not been ready with their papers.” 

Between June 9 and 11, BJP reportedly filed 3,820 nominations, followed by the CPIM which filed 2,952 nominations. Trinamool filed 626 and the Congress 233. 

For the elections to the Zilla Parishad, the BJP has filed 21 nominations followed by CPIM with 12 nominations while Congress and Trinamul Congress have filed 2 and 1 nomination, respectively. For the Panchayat Samiti elections, the BJP has filed 489 nominations, followed by the CPIM with 413 nominations, Trinamul Congress with 110 nominations, and Congress with 17 nominations.

For the Gram Panchayat seat, the BJP has filed 3,320 nominations followed by the CPIM with 2,527 nominations, Trinamul Congress with 515 nominations, Congress with 214 nominations, Forward Bloc with 30 nominations, and others with 162 nominations. There are a total of 68,283 seats at stake, taking the Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samity, and Zilla Parishad seats together.

There are 38,118 seats in Gram Panchayat and 8,062 seats in Panchayats. There are 793 seats in the Zilla Parishads.

The Opposition says that these figures indicate that an extension of the deadline would benefit the ruling party. 

“Clearly it was less prepared than some Opposition parties,” quips Chakraborty. 

The ruling Trinamool points out that the allegations that Opposition parties are not being allowed to file nominations are baseless.