EC show-cause notice to Mamata over model code

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday sent a show-cause notice to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for violating the Model Code of Conduct.

The EC objected to Mamata’s poll promise of curving Asansol out of Burdwan and turning it into a separate district.

While addressing a poll campaign rally at Asansol last week, Mamata told the gathering that once her government returns to power, she will turn Asansol, the traditional industrial belt of Bengal, into a separate district. Currently a part of Burdwan district, Asansol has hundreds of big and small collieries, among other industrial outfits. Analysts believe that Mamata made the promise in order to gain grounds in the region, which has sent BJP’s Babul Supriyo to the Lok Sabha in 2014. “It has been brought to our notice that she made a promise of creation of Asansol district and also made certain other utterances, for which the show-cause has been issued,” Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi told reporters in Kolkata. Under the poll conduct rules, no announcement can be made once the polling date has been announced in order to keep the ruling party from influencing the electorate. Zaidi was in town with the panel’s full bench to oversee poll preparations before the ongoing Assembly election’s second phase on April 17.

Instead of looking worried, Mamata, indirectly lashed out at the EC and said: “Election Commission has show-caused me today, on the day of Bengali New Year. The people of Bengal will show-cause them on May 19,” referring to the  vote-counting day.

“The Kolkata Police commissioner was removed and several OCs were changed. It’s being done at the behest of the Congress, the CPM and the BJP,” she further said, which many experts believe is in reference to the poll panel. There’s a political vendetta against one party,” she added.

Mamata has been under pressure from the EC since earlier this year, with the poll panel giving a lot of attention to complaints from the Opposition parties. While the poll panel decided to send in central security forces at least a month before the elections were to start, a number of district magistrates and top police officers were shuffled, following Opposition filing complaints of they being biased towards the ruling party. The most recent blow to Mamata was transfer of Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar and SP (Midnapore Range), Bharati Ghosh, on similar grounds.