West Bengal BJP urges Election Commission to postpone civic polls as COVID cases rise

In the wake of surging COVID-19 cases, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday wrote to the West Bengal State Election Commission to immediately postpone polls for four municipal corporations scheduled for January 22 in the state by at least a month. 

This comes after the Calcutta High Court also asked the WB State Election Commission to submit an affidavit to inform whether the four municipal corporation elections can be conducted or not on the decided date. Last month, the WB Election Commission had informed the Calcutta HC that it is ready to hold civic polls in the remaining municipal corporations.

BJP national president JP Nadda also cancelled his forthcoming visit to West Bengal. He was scheduled to visit the state on January 9-10. 

Seven municipal corporations in West Bengal include Asansol Municipal Corporation, Bidhan Nagar Municipal Corporation, Chandernagore Municipal Corporation, Durgapur Municipal Corporation, Howrah Municipal Corporation, Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Siliguri Municipal Corporation.

The Municipal corporation elections are slated to be held on January 22 in Bidhan Nagar, Chandannagar, Asansol, and Siliguri. Asansol has the most seats among the four, with 106, followed by Siliguri with 47, Chandannagar with 43, and Bidhannagar with 41 wards.

Kolkata municipal polls 

The BJP had faced yet another setback in West Bengal where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) swept the Kolkata civic polls on December 21, after which, the TMC further cemented its position as the state government.  

The TMC emerged as the largest party, winning 134 out of 144 wards. With only three wards, the BJP emerged as the second-largest party in the polls. The Left and the Congress each won two wards, while others won three. 

COVID-19 tally in West Bengal

West Bengal has reported 18,213 fresh COVID-19 cases on Friday, 2,792 more than the previous day, raising the tally to 17,11,957, a bulletin released by the health department informed. The death toll increased to 19,864 with 18 more fatalities. The state now has 51,384 active cases, while 7,912 patients have recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours. Since Thursday, 69,158 samples were tested in West Bengal. 

On Thursday, the West Bengal government tightened the curbs to contain the virus spread. With the Omicron case tally mounting in the state, CM Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that they have made the RT-PCR test compulsory for the interstate border area movement.