Kolkata, March 10 – Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar stated on Tuesday morning that the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal, scheduled for later this year, will be completely fair and free from violence.
“I extend my greetings to all my brothers and sisters in West Bengal. I assure you that the Assembly elections in the state, scheduled for later this year, will be fair and free from violence. Voters will be able to cast their votes without any fear or pressure,” Kumar told the media before leaving for Belur Math in Howrah, which is the international headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math & Ramakrishna Mission, founded by Swami Vivekananda.
After visiting Belur Math, the CEC, along with other members of the ECI’s full Bench, is scheduled to hold a crucial meeting with top bureaucrats and senior police officers of the state government, including Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty and the state’s acting Director General of Police Peeyush Pandey. The meeting is scheduled to begin around 10 A.M.
This will be followed by a press conference addressed by the CEC. The Commission’s full Bench will return to Delhi later in the day.
Tuesday is also set to be a significant day for West Bengal due to a crucial hearing later in the day at the Supreme Court on the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state, which is currently at the stage of judicial adjudication of the voters’ documents identified under the “logical discrepancy” category during the revision exercise.
The expected time of the hearing at a three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice Nilay Vipinchandra Anjaria is expected to begin at 3 P.M.
Currently, the judicial adjudication process is being carried out by 732 judicial officers, including 100 each from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha.
Based on the daily rate of the process, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, had estimated that the entire process is unlikely to be completed before the first week of April.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that her indefinite sit-in protest at Esplanade East in central Kolkata against the SIR exercise would continue on Tuesday. However, her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, also the general secretary of the Trinamool Congress and the party’s Lok Sabha member, had requested the Chief Minister to withdraw the sit-in protest, considering her age and physical condition.