The BJP has said it may appoint party workers and local leaders as coordinators to oversee civic services in the Kolkata and Howrah municipal corporations if elections are delayed, intensifying a political and legal dispute over who should administer the urban bodies in the interim.
BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya said on Wednesday that the party would not appoint people from the CPM or Trinamool Congress councillors accused of corruption to manage civic services. He was defending Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s statement that the government could appoint “BJP’r lok”, or BJP people, to manage services in the 209 proposed wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation if elections were delayed.
The proposed arrangement has emerged amid legal challenges to the delimitation process. The KMC’s existing 144 wards are proposed to be reorganised into 209 wards. The court proceedings have delayed the election process, with political parties trading allegations over whether the legal challenge is intended to protect the civic administration or obstruct the polls.
“I can’t simply go to a CPM party office, pick someone and appoint that person as a coordinator. Nor will we appoint someone from the Trinamool who is known to be corrupt or someone who became a councillor by looting votes,” Bhattacharya said. He added that BJP workers and local leaders would become coordinators if circumstances forced the party to consider such an arrangement, while maintaining that the BJP favoured elections.
Bhattacharya blamed parties that had approached the court for delaying the polls and urged the judiciary to consider the effect of the dispute on access to civic services. He said the court should reconsider its verdict and help resolve the issue so that elections could be held.
The CPM, which challenged the delimitation process, rejected the allegation that it was deliberately creating legal hurdles. CPM central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said the BJP-led government should have allowed the State Election Commission to issue the election notification before the court imposed its stay. He alleged that the proposed appointment of coordinators was an attempt to take control of the KMC without elections.
The dispute has also brought the previous use of coordinators into focus. A Trinamool source said the state government had appointed coordinators when the KMC elections were delayed during the Covid pandemic in 2020, including sitting councillors from different parties. Chakraborty agreed that the earlier arrangement had not been limited to Trinamool representatives and cited BJP councillor Sajal Ghosh as one of those retained as a coordinator.
BJP leaders said former Trinamool councillors had resigned and could therefore not be considered for the proposed appointments. Within the BJP, however, there are questions about how coordinators would be selected. A party source said candidates had been finalised for most KMC wards, but the process was incomplete for all seats. One senior BJP leader suggested that proposed election candidates could be appointed as coordinators to assess their performance before the polls.
Sukanta Majumdar, the BJP’s KMC election in-charge and a Union minister of state, rejected any connection between coordinator appointments and the selection of election candidates. “There is no relation between appointing coordinators and nominating candidates. Appointing coordinators will be an administrative decision,” he said. The immediate question remains whether the municipal elections can proceed while the delimitation dispute is before the court, or whether civic services will continue under an interim administrative arrangement.
