Kolkata:
Knives, metaphorically, were out at Calcutta High Court over the panchayat poll case today with the chief justice having to break up an argument between angry rival lawyers with an emphatic "enough is enough".
The moment the State Election Commission announced during the second round of hearing that it had gone to Supreme Court, lawyers of the Mamata Banerjee government launched a furious tirade, accusing it of keeping the court in the dark and calling the move mala fide. The chief justice, finally, shouted down the lawyers saying, "Enough is enough. We are fed up with the case."
Supreme Court will hear the matter on Friday.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the State Election Commissioner Mira Pande have been battling it out at the Calcutta High Court for the last two months. Today, as the court said it would meet at 12:30 to fix the number of phases and the number of security forces, news trickled in from Delhi that the State Election Commission had gone to Supreme Court with a Special Leave Petition.
Ms Banerjee was in West Midnapore district to campaign for the panchayat polls and she restricted herself to saying, "It's all a conspiracy by the CPM, the Congress and the BJP. They are afraid to face elections."
Her Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee also slammed the Election Commission saying, "It is unethical because the High Court was just supposed to give the order. They should have waited for the order"
Outside court, government pleader Ashok Banerjee said, "This is unethical. Why they kept the court in dark unless there was mal-intention"
The Election Commission was unmoved in the pursuit of its one point agenda: a commitment from the state on how much security force it will give for the polls. The Supreme Court has asked the state and Centre to explain.
The Opposition has squarely blamed the state government for the mess. CPM's Surya Kanta Mishra said, "The government has been dilly dallying from the beginning."
Whatever the Supreme Court says on Friday, most analysts are saying the possibility of the polls beginning on July 2 look extremely remote.