A petition has been filed before the Calcutta High Court challenging the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s decision to deploy only Central government employees as vote counting supervisors for the recently concluded assembly elections in West Bengal.
West Bengal recorded highest-ever poll participation since independence in the legislative assembly elections that concluded on Wednesday.
As per the ECI, the combined poll-percentage over the two-phases was 92.47 percent. The votes will be counted on May 4.
Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay, representing a petitioner, today made a mentioning before Justice Krishna Rao for urgent listing of a plea related to the counting of votes.
"[It has ordered] that counting supervisor will also from Central government and PSU. Firstly, Chief Electoral Officer has no jurisdiction. This has not been done in any states. Only in this State. Government means... read with Article 12. Here the appropriate government is State government," Bandopadhyay said.
Bandopadhyay added that circular has been issued long back but was circulated only on Wednesday.
The Court allowed listing of the matter at 2 PM.