Kolkata: The full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in West Bengal, to review the ongoing judicial adjudication of the voters’ documents identified as “logical discrepancy” cases as well the preparedness for the crucial upcoming Assembly elections, will begin from 10 a.m. on Monday with meetings with all registered political parties in the state.
The full bench of the Commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, arrived in Kolkata from New Delhi late on Sunday evening.
They were greeted at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata by West Bengal’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Manoj Kumar Agarwal, and the state’s Chief Secretary, Nandini Chakraborty.
The first scheduled task of the full bench of the ECI will be to hold meetings with delegations from different registered political parties, with each party being allotted 10 minutes for interaction.
Trinamool Congress, being the ruling party in the state, will most probably be allotted the first slot of interaction with the ECI’s full bench.
The six-member delegation of Trinamool Congress who would be present during the interaction will be two Lok Sabha members, Mahua Moitra and Kalyan Banerjee, one Rajya Sabha member, Samirul Islam, West Bengal Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Minister and Kolkata Municipal Corporation Mayor, Firhad Hakim, Minister of State for Finance (independent charge) Chandrima Bhattacharya and just-retired acting Director General of West Bengal Police Rajeev Kumar, who is slated to become a Rajya Sabha member of the Trinamool Congress.
The scheduled time of the meetings with delegations of different political parties is between 10 a.m and 12 noon.
At around 12.30 p.m., CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal will give a presentation to the Commission’s full bench on the situation relating to judicial adjudication and poll preparedness. The presentation will last for around 30 minutes, as per the schedule provided by the CEO’s office.
Thereafter, between 1:15 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Monday, the Commission’s full bench will hold a meeting with representatives of different security and investigating agencies, both from the state and the Centre.
Approximately 24 agencies will be represented at the meeting, along with district magistrates and district police superintendents.
On March 10, the Commission’s full bench will hold meetings with top bureaucrats and senior police officers of the state government, including Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty and the state’s acting Director General of Police Peeyush Pandey.
That meeting will start at 10 a.m. This will be followed by a press conference to be addressed by the CEC.
The Commission’s full bench will return to Delhi later on March 10.
(IANS)
