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Bureau Prayagraj. The Election Commission of India on Saturday assured the Supreme Court that it will abide by the circular to the appointment of vote counting supervisor for the assembly elections in West Bengal. Senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission of India, said that the vote counting will take place on May 4 in the presence of the nominee of the state government. Election Commission lawyer Naidu said, “We are saying that the state government’s nominee will be there. This will be followed even before all this.”

According to Bar & Bench, the bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing the petition of All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) against the decision of the Chief Electoral Officer to appoint only central government employees as vote counting supervisors for the assembly elections in West Bengal.

The court recorded this statement of Naidu. That ECI will fully comply with its circular. Therefore, it declined to pass any order on TMC’s appeal against the Calcutta High Court order. “No further order is required in the SLP,” the court said in its order. “We record the submission of Mr. Naidu that the ECI circular be followed in its entirety. The matter came up for urgent hearing today as the counting of votes is scheduled to take place on May 4.

This petition was filed against the order of the Calcutta High Court, which had dismissed the petition on Thursday. The High Court said that it is the right of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to appoint counting supervisors and counting assistants from the state government or the central government.

The High Court said, “This Court does not find anything illegal in appointing counting supervisors and counting assistants from Central Government/Central PSU employees instead of State Government employees.” It further said that if TMC feels that the Central Government employees are favoring BJP candidates, then it can later file an election petition to challenge the results. For this reason, an appeal was made in the Supreme Court.