Govt not at loggerheads with poll body: Subrata
A day after governor M.K. Narayanan condemned Trinamul Congress general secretary Mukul Roy’s attack on state election commissioner Mira Pande, state panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee embarked upon a damage control exercise.
On Tuesday, Mr Mukherjee said on the sidelines of the Budget session: “We are not going in any confrontation with the state election commission which has consultative power in organising the panchayat polls.” It maybe recalled that on Monday evening, Mr Mukherjee had said that he did not find any fault in Ms Pande’s work unlike Mr Roy but had made it clear that the government was in favour of a two-phase poll.
Mr Mukherjee, however, said: “The commission does not have the decision-making powers. If it does then it would not have written to the state government for the poll preparations. It is the state government which can hold the polls according to the law. Once the chief minister returns from North Bengal, I will discuss the poll preparations and notification for it with her before writing to the commission.”
In fact, he already has had a first round of talks with Ms Banerjee on Monday.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA Manas Bhunia urged the state government to work together with the state election commission for a peaceful poll in multiple phases.
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