Kolkata:
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken her attack on the State Election Commissioner Meera Pandey a step further.
At a panchayat poll rally yesterday at Debra, Ms Banerjee said her government would have removed the Election Commissioner from office, if her party, the Trinamool Congress, had a two-third majority in the Assembly.
Ms Banerjee has been slamming the State Election Commission for imposing panchayat polls in the month of Ramzan. She has also said that Ms Pandey was not her appointee, but the appointee of her predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who she accuses of intentionally giving Ms Pandey an extension as Election Commissioner.
"Before CPM left power, the post of the State Election Commission Chief was constitutionally three years, now it has been made six years, this situation would have never happened if the Trinamool had two-third majority. We would have easily got two-third majority if we got Congress-held seats," she said.
Ms Banerjee's latest attack on Ms Pandey has come in for sharp criticism from constitutional experts who say an Election Commissioner cannot be removed by a state Assembly. An Election Commissioner may only be removed by impeachment by Parliament. The procedure is the same for the removal of a judge.
Ms Pandey, meanwhile, has refused to react to the chief minister's remarks saying it does not behove a constitutional body to react to such comments.
Relations between Ms Banerjee's government and the State Election Commission nosedived over the last three months over many issues concerning the panchayat polls - the two were locked in a tussle over the right to announce the poll schedule and arrangement for adequate security.
The matters reached the court, and finally the Supreme Court announced five-phase polling on July 11, 15, 19, 22 and 25. Ramzan begins tomorrow.