Trinamool Congress set to take on poll panel

New Delhi: Still rankling against the poll panel over its restrictions during the West Bengal elections, the Trinamool Congress at a parliamentary panel meeting here questioned how the Election Commission ordered transfer of 68 police and civil officials during the state polls.
Deliberating at a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, Trinamool Congress member Sukhendu Shekhar Roy raised issues concerning the functioning of the Election Commission (EC), especially in the context of the recently held assembly polls in West Bengal, party sources said on Wednesday. Roy, a Trinamool member of the Rajya Sabha, complained against the EC’s discretionary orders like transferring civil and police officials during electioneering and also asked why were the elections in West Bengal held in a multi-phase manner unlike in other states.
Meanwhile, sources in the BJP and the Left parties told IANS that the Trinamool MP is only toeing the line set by party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has hinted at questioning discretionary powers of the poll panel.  “We do not want to talk about issues raised in a standing committee, but it seems the Trinamool MP is only following the diktat,” a CPI source said. In what is largely seen as a veiled attack on the Election Commission, which had earned brickbats from Mamata even in the run up to the polls, TMC supremo had on June 1 said the “festival of democracy or election cannot be achieved by imposing curfew”. (IANS)