EC's partisanship, bias coming in way of free and fair election in West Bengal, alleges TMC

EC, however, dismissed the TMC’s allegation that it had banned deployment of state police within 100 metres of polling stations

The Trinamool Congress on Friday alleged that the “partisan and biased approach” taken by the Election Commission was coming in the way of conducting “free, fair and transparent” Assembly polls in West Bengal.

The Election Commission, however, dismissed the Trinamool Congress’s allegation that it had banned the deployment of state police within 100 metres of polling stations in West Bengal.

The commission, according to sources, would soon write to the Trinamool Congress, clarifying that it had only banned the deployment of personnel of the civic police and green police raised by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government to help West Bengal police control traffic and maintain order.

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The EC recently wrote to the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, stating that civic police, green police and student police personnel would not be allowed to perform any duty wearing uniforms during the 72 hours ahead of the day of polling, on the day of polling as well as the day after.

The personnel of civic police, green police and student police in West Bengal do not have any legal power to arrest or search, but they are paid by the state government to help the regular cops, primarily to control traffic and to maintain order. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had earlier demanded that the EC should bar deployment of the civic police, green police or student police personnel during the polling in West Bengal, as they allegedly owe their allegiance to the ruling Trinamool Congress in the state.

Banerjee’s party on Friday submitted a memorandum to the EC, stressing that the combined forces of state police and central paramilitary forces should be deployed within 100 metres of each polling booth.

The Trinamool Congress also criticised the EC’s decision to tally the digital vote data retrieved from the Electronic Voting Machines with the number of slips generated by the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) devices in five polling stations in every Assembly constituency.

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Banerjee’s party had earlier demanded that the EC should tally the vote-counts on the EVMs and the VVPATs in all the polling stations. The EC, however, cited the Supreme Court’s April 2019 order to justify its decision not to tally the EVM-VVPAT vote-counts in all the polling stations.

The Trinamool Congress, however, argued that the Supreme Court’s 2019 order was applicable only to the Lok Sabha elections held that year.