Violence and deaths have become the fate of West Bengal during elections

Despite the success of former Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan’s tireless efforts for electoral reforms, West Bengal is the only state in the country where violence continues at all levels of elections. This time more than 50 people became victims of election violence in the panchayat elections. Of these, more than 12 were Muslims. The surprising thing is that the opposition parties who cry for democracy in the country did not even consider it necessary to shed crocodile tears over the killing of minorities. The same opposition parties are preparing to unite on the BJP on other charges including atrocities on minorities. Senior Congress leader Rahul had gone to violence-hit Manipur. But Rahul did not utter a single word on the horrific violence in Bengal. Rahul did not see the murder of democracy in the panchayat elections in Bengal. A large number of Congress workers have died in the violence in Bengal. Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary only said that there is no democracy in Bengal. Congress’s firebrand leader Digvijay Singh said it was terrible. Scary. Significantly, despite the defeat of the BJP in the assembly elections in Karnataka, there was not a single death in the violence.

West Bengal Governor CV Anand Bose said on the violence in the Panchayat elections – What I saw on the ground is very disturbing, there is violence and killings. One thing that I have observed – that only poor people get killed, murderers are also poor… We should end poverty but instead we are killing poor. Bengal does not deserve this. The BJP said, “Had this scene been witnessed in a BJP-ruled state, there would have been hue and cry. Where is Rahul Gandhi now…? He was about to open a love shop. The state government did not give the exact number of sensitive booths.” ,The number of people who have been killed includes the responsible people of the state. Firing, Bombing. Ballot boxes were burnt. All these leaders, who stand holding hands in the states, where are all these leaders? Where is Lalu Prasad Yadav , Where is Nitish Kumar and where is Rahul Gandhi who opened the shop of love?”

The Ministry of Home Affairs clearly stated that there was no violence at the booths deployed by them in the Panchayat elections. No untoward incident/violence has been reported from the booths where CAPFs were deployed. If an attempt was made to vitiate the atmosphere, peace was immediately restored. CAPFs should have been deployed at sensitive booths, but DMs of respective districts planned to deploy central forces. The CAPF took over the arrangements at the booths where the DM sent the central force for security. As soon as the results of the panchayat elections came in Bengal, the second round of violence started. An Indian Secular Front worker was killed in the violence in Bhangor in South-24 Parganas district, while an Additional SP was badly injured due to a bullet injury in his hand. The whole matter is related to the counting, where the ISF candidate was leading earlier in the counting, but later lost. The uproar that started with this gradually took the form of major violence.

Voting was held for 74,000 panchayats on July 8, where re-voting had to be conducted when some polling stations were disputed. During the election, apart from the state police, four central force personnel were deployed at every booth. West Bengal is setting unique records in the electoral history of the country. This is the only state in the country where paramilitary forces were deployed on the orders of the High Court to prevent election violence at the Panchayat level. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee strongly opposed the deployment of paramilitary forces. But even the Supreme Court could not get relief. The fear of elections in West Bengal can be gauged from the fact that thousands of candidates won unopposed. Out of fear, people did not file nominations to contest the panchayat elections. Most Trinamool Congress candidates won unopposed, fearing violence, no one filed nominations. West Bengal State Election Commission data after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations confirms that 7,005 of the 73,887 seats at all three levels have been won by candidates unopposed. This is about 9.48 percent of the total number of seats. Most of these are the candidates of Mamta’s party Trinamool Congress. During the panchayat elections in Bengal, maximum cases of violence have been reported from North and South 24 Parganas, apart from Murshidabad and Coochbehar. In Cooch Behar, TMC workers went to extremes when even after breaking the ballot boxes, poured water on them and also set some of them on fire. Along with this, more or less similar incidents were also seen in North and South Dinajpur.

Even during the assembly elections, 52 people lost their lives in West Bengal. During this, not only BJP workers were killed, workers of other parties were also involved in this. In West Bengal, the CBI had registered 43 cases in connection with the violence that took place after the assembly elections. The CBI had registered these cases in compliance with the orders of the Calcutta High Court. Apart from assembly and Lok Sabha elections, it has been a common thing to see rivers of blood flowing on the land here. In the years 2013 and 2018, several incidents of firing, bombings, arson, stone pelting and chopping of body parts were reported. According to official data, 13 people were killed in the 2018 panchayat elections. After all, why there is violence in Bengal during elections? Is this the destiny of West Bengal or the failure of the government machinery. Either the Election Commission or the government, someone or the other has to take responsibility for these deaths.

– Yogendra Yogi