Calcutta, July 3: The Electricity (West Bengal Amendment) Bill is back with the Assembly after President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam objected to two clauses.

The development has raised Opposition parties’ hopes that a panchayat amendment bill that they have dubbed “draconian” would suffer the same fate.

But Kalam’s last working day is July 24 and the West Bengal Panchayat Amendment Bill is still lying with governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

Today, Gandhi returned the electricity amendment bill to the state legislature on the President’s advice, issued on June 16. The bill, passed on June 28, 2005, was sent to the governor who had passed it on to Kalam.

The governor’s written message said: “The President of India, having considered the Electricity (West Bengal Amendment) Bill, has directed that the bill be returned to the Legislature of the State of West Bengal to reconsider it and delete clauses 6, 18(3) and 19 of the bill.”

Clause 6 empowers the state electricity commission to determine the surcharge on power generation and supply, while clause 18(3) says that in the case of power theft, a magistrate will take police reports and necessary documents and submit them to a special court for action against the accused.

Clause 19 makes the state electricity commission the appellate body for complaints relating to the power tariff structure.

Today, the Congress and Trinamul Congress legislature parties demanded that the panchayat amendment bill, passed in 2006, be turned down as well. Trinamul has decided to write to the President.

The bill allows a panchayat samiti to dissolve a gram panchayat on the ground of irregularities in its functioning.

The leader of the Opposition, Partha Chatterjee, said: “The President’s move to return the power amendment bill has definitely enthused us. We now want the President to return the panchayat amendment bill; else it will play havoc with democratically elected bodies.”