With 16 days left for the Kolkata civic body elections, the BJP has not yet projected a candidate for the mayor. December 1 was the last day to submit nomination papers for the polls, while the BJP had announced its list of candidates on November 29. From that day on till December 2, state BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya has repeatedly been asked if anyone is running for mayor in the Kolkata civic polls.
Bhattacharya said, “This is our strategy. Even in the assembly election, we did not contest by projecting anyone as a chief ministerial candidate.”
Arjun Singh, one of the BJP leaders who is incharge of the polls, said, “The party manifesto of the Kolkata civic polls will be launched on December 8. Whether or not someone will be nominated as potential mayor will be known then. No decision has been made yet.”
A section of the state BJP, however, said there was low interest among workers to be a candidate in the Kolkata municipal elections after the party lost some seats in the assembly election as well as the bypoll.
In such a situation, it might not be realistic to go public with a potential mayoral face. According to other sections of the party, however, results would have been better if a potential chief minister had contested the assembly polls as well. That could then pave the way for a potential mayoral face in the municipal elections.
This time, however, there are many candidates in the BJP list whose mother tongue is not Bangla.
Elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation are scheduled to be held on December 19. The state BJP had moved the Calcutta High Court seeking directions to the state election commission and state government to conduct polls for all civic bodies across the date on a single date.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and justice R Bharadwaj had directed the SEC and the state government to inform the court about a plan to hold elections to municipal bodies where polls are due. The matter will be taken up for hearing again on December 6.
The BJP, in its plea, has stated that elections to over 100 municipal bodies in the state, where they are due, should be held on a single date for the sake of free and fair polls.
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