Kolkata civic polls face a fresh legal challenge after the Bengal government moved the Supreme Court against a Calcutta High Court order restraining the State Election Commission from announcing elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). The case is likely to be heard next week, while a separate petition has challenged the expansion of Howrah Municipal Corporation from 50 to 68 wards.
The High Court order had put the proposed KMC election announcement on hold until a single-judge bench decides a petition challenging the increase in the number of wards from 144 to 209 following delimitation. The dispute has placed the structure of Kolkata’s civic representation at the centre of the election timetable.
The KMC’s five-year board term was due to end on December 7. The corporation is currently being run by an administrator. In its 21-page order, a division bench comprising Justices Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Arjun Ray Mukherjee questioned the sequence of administrative and delimitation decisions surrounding the civic polls.
The bench observed that the corporation had been dissolved mid-term and an administrator appointed, followed by what it described as a “hasty chronology of events”. The order stated that this sequence “lends some substance to the appellant’s arguments that there might have been a method in the madness”.
The state government’s move to the Supreme Court comes as the election process remains tied to the court’s decision on ward delimitation. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had indicated that if the legal proceedings continued beyond November 30, the state would appoint coordinators for each of the 209 wards. The proposed arrangement would continue civic administration while the dispute over the election process is heard.
The parallel Howrah case was filed by Imteaz Ahamad, a former mayor-in-council member of the Howrah Municipal Corporation and a CPM functionary. Ahamad approached a single bench of Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury on Friday, challenging the proposed increase in Howrah’s wards from 50 to 68.
Ahamad, who previously represented ward 20 under the old numbering and ward 26 after delimitation, argued that the ward boundaries had been drawn using electoral-roll parts rather than population. According to his petition, the resulting ward populations range from 2,758 to 41,032 residents. These figures are claims made in the petition and will be examined by the court.
The petition also challenges the authority under which the delimitation proposal was prepared. It states that the Howrah Municipal Corporation was dissolved on December 7, 2018, and that an administrator was appointed the following day. The municipal affairs department initiated a proposal for 68 wards in July 2026.
Ahamad argued that no recommendation from the corporation, acting as a body corporate through a competent mechanism, preceded the notification. He has therefore sought to have the notification quashed, while also questioning whether an administrator could propose delimitation in the absence of an elected municipal body.
The Supreme Court’s consideration of the Bengal government’s challenge and the High Court’s proceedings on the KMC and Howrah ward structures will determine the next steps for the two civic election processes. Until then, the announcement of KMC polls remains subject to the court’s orders, with the state indicating November 30 as a key date for its proposed interim administrative arrangement.
