Munmun Kaur –
Published On: December 2, 2021 at 18:30 IST
A petition was moved by BJP seeking the Calcutta High Court’s direction to the Commission and the Government to hold civic polls in a single phase.
Lawyer Jayanta Mitra, appearing on the behalf of the Commission told the Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava on Wednesday that his client had decided to hold the polls in Calcutta first as a test case. The reason given was that the vaccination rate in Calcutta is fairly high as compared to other municipal areas.
Jayanta Mitra elaborated that due to logistic issues like the shortage of EVMs and other logistic support, elections in the other municipalities would have to be conducted in phases.
Mitra also said that the total number of EVMs required to hold polls in a single phase is 30,073 whereas only 15,600 are available.
The Court then asked as to why the polls could not be held in 2 phases then. In response to this Mitra clarified that due to issues of manpower even that was not possible. Besides, the covid situation is also to be kept in mind for planning the polls as unlike Calcutta most of the districts have low vaccination rates.
The Court, after hearing the arguments asked both the Commission and the Government to inform it on Monday that in how many phases will the Civic polls be held.