Highlights:
- Election Commission visits West Bengal ahead of elections
- Election Commission will stay in West Bengal for 3 days
- EC will hold meetings with political parties, state administration and elections commissioners during its visit
The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora along with the Election Commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar are going to arrive in poll-bound West Bengal to review the state’s election preparedness on Wednesday evening.
As of now they are in Assam, and will go directly to West Bengal from there.
The Election Commissioners will attend a series of meetings while their stay in West Bengal with political parties, state administration and also the election commissioners during the three-day visit.
Apart from the CEC and the Election Commissioners, the official team visiting West Bengal for 3 days will also have Dharmendra Sharma whos is the Director General of Election Commission of India (ECI), Chandra Bhushan Kumar whos is the Deputy Election Commissioner and also some other senior officials.
As per reports, the top official, immediately after arriving in West Bengal, will hold meetings with the State Chief Election officer and state police nodal officer.
On the next day, Thursday, the bench will have direct interaction with the representatives of the recognised national and state political parties.
After this meeting, there will be another meeting with the officials of election-related regulatory agencies.
Meetings with the District Election Officers (DEOs) and also the Superintendents of Police (SPs) are also scheduled on the same day.
On the 22nd of January, the officials will meet the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Director General of Election Commission of India Dharmendra Sharma and other senior state officials.
Election Commission’s comes eight days after the Deputy Election Commissioner and the State In-charge, Sudeep Jain visited the state for the second time.
The aim of the Commission if to conduct a free and fair election in West Bengal, and as per multiple sources, the strongest action would be taken against the poll officials, if any complaints are raised.
On the 15th of January, the state CEO of West Bengal released its list of final voters with the numbers going as high as 7,32,94,980, which is an increase of over 2%.
It is likely that the number of polling booths will increase as well to keep the situation under pandemic.
The terms of the Legislative Assemblies of five poll-bound states – Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal – are coming at the end of either May or June in 2021. The election for the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal comprises of 295 seats and are to be held in 2021 as the current tenure will end on the 30th of May.
