Tripura High Court directs state poll panel to conduct free and fair panchayat elections

Agartala: The Tripura High Court on Thursday directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct free and fair three-tier Gram Panchayats elections on August 8.

A division bench of the High Court comprising Justice Arindam Lodh and Justice Sabyasachi Datta Purkayastha asked the SEC to hold the panchayat elections freely, fairly and transparently.

The High Court passed the orders after the opposition Congress and the CPI-M earlier filed separate petitions before the court seeking its directions to the SEC to conduct the Gram Panchayats elections freely and fairly after a large number of violent incidents took place across the state while the candidates of the opposition parties tried to submit their nomination papers.

Senior lawyer Purushottam Ray Barman said after the High Court order that the Congress has sought a direction from the High Court to submit the nomination papers by the candidates through online mode after the SEC turned down the opposition party’s request in this regard.

“The High Court in its order recognised the submission of nomination papers online.

"The court said with the advancement of technology and with the ever increasing criminalisation of politics, now is the time that the Election Commission brings necessary amendments in law so that the candidates can file nomination papers online,” Ray Barman told the media.0

He alleged that out of 35 Panchayat Samities, except 6-7 Panchayat Samities, in most places opposition parties’ candidates are unable to submit the nomination papers as the ruling party members and their goons took control in most blocks.

Tripura CPI (M) leader and Left Front convener Narayan Kar said the party had approached the High Court after the SEC failed to conduct the process of the panchayat elections freely and fairly and police remained silent spectators despite widespread violence across the state.

Kar alleged that CPI-M candidate Badal Shil for the South Tripura Zilla Parishad was critically injured in an attack by the ruling BJP-backed assailants on July 12 at Rajnagar in South Tripura district and the next day he succumbed to his injuries.

The Congress and the CPI-M leaders separately claimed that around a hundred candidates, party workers and supporters were injured after the ruling party members and their goons attacked them since the election schedule was announced on July 10.

Thursday was the last day for filing of nomination papers in all three tiers of the panchayat polls.

There are 6,370 seats in 606 Gram Panchayats, 423 seats in 35 Panchayat Samitis, and 116 seats in eight Zilla Parishads, with 33 per cent reservation for women.