The West Bengal State Election Commission (WBSEC) convened a key preparatory meeting on 2 September to review the state's readiness for urban civic body elections — covering municipal corporations and municipalities — targeted for completion by December 2025. District Magistrates from all poll-bound districts were called in to assess ground-level preparedness, including the availability of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

Key Developments

The meeting's agenda centred on the prevailing situation across urban civic bodies and a critical stocktaking of EVM availability. According to a WBSEC insider, the shortage of EVMs has emerged as the Commission's primary concern — a bottleneck that could delay the formal poll announcement.

The Commission has already approached the Calcutta High Court seeking an urgent hearing on the matter. A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Atarup Banerjee is expected to take up the case next week.

Why EVMs Are in Short Supply

'Several election petition cases related to the recent West Bengal Assembly polls earlier this year are pending in the Calcutta High Court. In all those cases, the court has ordered the Election Commission of India to preserve EVM machines, VVPATs and other materials from various centres. As a result, the announcement of the municipal body elections might be delayed due to the lack of EVMs. In the wake of such development, we have approached the Calcutta High Court for an urgent hearing in the matter,' the WBSEC insider said.

This is a direct consequence of post-election legal proceedings — a scenario that has rarely surfaced in this form before, and one that places the state election body in an unusual bind where judicial orders tied to one set of elections are effectively stalling the next.

KMC and HMC: The High-Stakes Contests

Among all the urban civic bodies due for elections, the most closely watched are the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) — the oldest municipal corporation in the state — and the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC). Both are currently in the delimitation phase.

In KMC, the draft delimitation proposal has suggested increasing the number of wards from 144 to 209, with the final count likely to reach 211. In HMC, the draft envisages raising wards from 50 to 68. The revised ward layouts will govern how voters are distributed, how polling stations are set up, and how administrative resources are allocated — changes that political observers consider pivotal to the electoral map of both cities, particularly Kolkata.

Impact on Electoral Preparations

The increase in ward counts has triggered a cascade of administrative adjustments — voter list revisions, booth rationalisation, and staff deployment planning — all of which are now compounded by the EVM availability question. The delimitation exercise alone makes these among the most logistically complex civic polls the state has held in recent years.

Whether the Calcutta High Court grants early relief on EVM release will likely determine whether the Commission can keep its year-end election schedule on track.