It is virtually official now. The Assembly elections in the state will not be advanced despite Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s persistent demand. The polls will be held in May 2011 as scheduled. The state administration has started necessary preparations for a May election after it received this information from the Election Commission.
Mr Vinod Zutshi, the deputy election commissioner who recently visited the city to review the progress of the electoral rolls revision, reportedly asked the state’s chief electoral officer Sunil Gupta to make preparations for the polls in May. Mr Gupta informed the state administration about this during his meeting with state chief secretary Samar Ghosh and state home secretary G.D. Gautama on Friday.
Curiously, although Ms Banerjee has been persistently demanding early polls, her party has not formally made such a demand to the Election Commission. After a meeting with the district magistrates on December 1, Mr Zutshi had said, “No political party has formally appealed to the Election Commission to prepone the Assembly elections in the state.”
During his interactions with the state’s chief electoral officer, Mr Zutshi inquired about the schedule and duration of major examinations in the state. He also learnt that the second phase of the ongoing census would not be completed before February 20.
Madhyamik (Class 10) examination will begin on February 23 and will continue till March 7. The higher secondary (Class 12) examination will start on March 16 and will end on April 8. According to the annual working plan of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, the annual examination of Class 11 in different schools will start from March 16. So school premises will not be available for the setting up of polling booths during that period. The EC has also considered the fact that since the use of loudspeakers is banned during major examinations, political parties will not be able to campaign.
The EC usually deploys a large number of school teachers on poll duty. If the elections are scheduled before mid-April, the EC would have found it difficult to get adequate number of poll officials because the teachers would be busy with board and school examinations.
The primary teachers will also be engaged with the census work which will continue till late February. “After taking all these factors into consideration, the EC has decided to hold the polls as per schedule,” sources said.