Kolkata, March 11 A public interest litigation had been filed at a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday seeking free and fair and violence-free polls in West Bengal in the crucial Assembly elections in the state scheduled later this year.
The petition had been admitted by the division bench of the Calcutta High Court, Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen, and the matter is expected to come up for hearing in the second half of Wednesday.
The publication interest litigation had been filed just a day after the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) told media persons in Kolkata on Tuesday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) this time will move with a zero-tolerance policy towards poll-related violence, be it before the polls, during the polls, or after the polls.
"The Commission had decided to act in this matter very strongly and take strong action against anyone involved in the matter," the CEC said.
In the public interest litigation filed on Wednesday, the petition referred to instances of poll-related violence in the past election, including intimidation of voters and opposition party agents, and even instances of outrage of modesty of women by the "political hooligans" in the state.
The other demands in the public interest litigation include immediate deployment of central armed police forces (CAPF) in highly sensitive pockets in the state, installation of CCTVs, and arrangement of videography in all booths this time.
The petitioner had also referred to unprecedented bloodshed and violence in the elections for the three-tier panchayat system in West Bengal both in 2018 and 2023, which resulted in loss of several lives in both these years.
The ECI, this time, is specially focusing on curbing instances of pre-poll and post-poll violence in West Bengal, which made the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections murky.
Even recently, there were allegations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s 'Parivartan Yatra' being attacked at several places in the state, allegedly by the Trinamool Congress activists.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor