Kolkata, March 16 -- West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday hiked the dearness allowance (DA) for state government employees and increased the monthly honorariums for mosque muezzins and Hindu priests barely an hour before the Election Commission's announced the assembly poll schedule. Polling in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, the EC announced on Sunday. "I am happy to announce that our Ma-Mati-Manush government has delivered on its promise to all its employees and pensioners, and to lakhs of teachers and non-teaching staff of our educational institutions, as well as employees/pensioners of our other grant-in-aid institutions like panchayats, municipal bodies, other local bodies, etc," Banerjee wrote on X at 3:05 pm. "They will start receiving their ROPA 2009 DA arrears from March 2026 onwards," she added. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the Bengal legislative assembly, called Banerjee's announcement on revised DA a "desperate last-minute gimmick....