Mamata Banerjee's entry into State Assembly will depend on Covid-19 situation in West Bengal

Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s entry into the Legislative Assembly will depend on the Covid-19 situation in the state.

Banerjee commenced her third term as the Chief Minister of West Bengal on May 5. She now has five more months to get elected to the legislative assembly in order to continue at the helm of the state government.

But the Election Commission (EC) is likely to review the Covid-19 situation in West Bengal before taking a call on holding bye-election in the state’s Bhabanipur Assembly Constituency, where the Chief Minister is expected to contest.

The EC is likely to take inputs from the National Disaster Management Authority as well as the concerned State Disaster Management Authority before scheduling bypolls in Bhabanipur in West Bengal as well as any other assembly or parliamentary constituency in any other State.

It will also take into account the report of a committee it set up last month to study and recommend how it can make agencies responsible for enforcing the Covid-19 safety protocols do their job more efficiently during polls “irrespective of and in addition to” its own guidelines. The committee is expected to submit its report soon.

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Sovandeb Chattopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress was elected to the Legislative Assembly from Bhabanipur during the recent elections in West Bengal. He, however, resigned from the membership of the State Assembly, apparently to make way for the Trinamool Congress supremo to contest from Bhabanipur. Banerjee led her party to a landslide victory in the Assembly polls, but lost to her protege-turned-foe Suvendu Adhikari of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Nandigram.

A recent tweet by Trinamool Congress vice president, Yashwant Sinha, however, triggered speculation over what might still come in the way of the party supremo, who would have to get elected to the State Assembly within six months to continue in the office of the Chief Minister.

“A little bird tells me that the Election Commission will not hold any election for the next few months so that Mamataji does not enter the assembly within 6 months,” Sinha, who joined the Trinamool Congress on March 13 last, posted on Twitter on Saturday, albeit without divulging the source of the information or elaborating further.

His tweet came amid the continued tussle between the BJP-led government in the Centre and Banerjee’s government in the State – be it on the issue of post-poll violence or on sudden recall of Indian Administrative Service officer Alapan Bandopadhyay, who was the Chief Secretary of the State, to Delhi leading to his resignation.

Section 151 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, requires the EC to conduct bye-election to fill any vacancy in any legislative assembly or councils in any state or the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha within six months from the date of creation of the vacancy, provided that the remainder of the term in relation to the vacancy is one year or more. The sub-section (b) of Section 151 of the R P Act, however, allows the EC to postpone bye-elections, if it certifies in consultation with the Central Government that it would be difficult to hold the bye-election within the stipulated period of six months.

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The EC did draw flak from holding assembly polls in four states – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and West Bengal – and the Union Territory of Puducherry in March and April amid the Covid-19 second wave, which wreaked havoc across the country. Even the Madras High Court on April 26 observed that the poll panel was “singularly responsible” for the second wave of the Covid-19 in the country as it failed to enforce safety protocols required to check the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus during electioneering. The commission was also criticised for stretching the assembly elections in West Bengal long, by conducting polling in eight phases.

The poll panel, however, deferred bye-elections in three parliamentary constituencies in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. It also deferred bypolls in nine assembly constituencies in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya.

The polling in two assembly constituencies of West Bengal was adjourned after death of candidates and was rescheduled to take place on May 16. But the EC deferred voting in both the constituencies, citing the Covid-19 pandemic.

Adhikari and other leaders of the BJP criticized Banerjee for taking over the office of the Chief Minister again, even after her personal defeat in Nandigram, where she chose to contest from this year, instead of Bhabanipur, where she was elected from thrice since 2011.