Violence against the people became a norm for the State of West Bengal. Consequently, common people’s tolerance for violence increased. Panchayat Election didn’t have to be declared for targeted violence to begin in the State of West Bengal. It started from the month of April with the alleged murder of Bijoy Krishna Bhunia of Bakcha Gram Panchayat of Moyna, Purba Medinipur. While Rajendra Shaw of Jamuria, Asansol, died in April, Ashok Chakraborty of the same place was killed in May. People of the ruling party allegedly murdered both of them. Nakul Haldar of Krishnaganj, Nadia, too, got murdered in May while Prashanta Basunia of Dinhata, Coochbehar was reportedly shot dead at the beginning of June. All these people belonged to the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They were all working on the ground to strengthen the party organisation at the booth level.
Panchayat Election was dramatically announced in the late afternoon of June 8 and the model code of conduct was imposed with immediate effect. While Bengal Governor was unwilling to clear the appointment of Rajiva Sinha as the new State Election Commissioner and looked for more names to be proposed by the State Government, he finally gave his consent to the appointment of Rajiva Sinha as SEC on June 7. The ex-Chief Secretary of West Bengal, Rajiva Sinha, ex-IAS, took no time for stocktaking and announced July 8 as the date of the Panchayat Election and July 11 as the result day. Since then, the State switched to the ceaseless violence mode.
Targeting Opposition Candidates
People were given practically five days to file nomination while opposition candidates were subjected to grave violence and were confronted with impediments while they were on their way to file their nomination. The first victim of violence was Phoolchand Sheikh of Khargram, Murshidabad, a Congress worker who died on June 9. Mansur Alam, a CPM worker of Chopra, Uttar Dinajpur, was hit by a bullet on June 15 while CPM and Congress workers were heading towards the BDO office for nomination filing. June 15 saw two deaths. Apart from a daily wage earner of Bhangar, South 24 Parganas, Raju Naskar, also hailing from Bhangar, was also beaten to death. On June 21, two more persons were killed in Bhangar, which witnessed ongoing conflicts.
Political Murders and Chaos
Bisakha Das of BJP is a contestant from Dinhata, Coochbehar. Armed men marauded her house on June 17 and threatened her to withdraw her nomination. To create pressure on her not to contest the elections, these intruders killed her brother-in-law Sambhu Das. TMC’s Dhananjay Choubey of Adra, Purulia, was allegedly shot dead on June 22 by Congressmen. Choubey’s bodyguard Tanmay Paul was injured in the same incident. Alim Sheikh of Beldanga, Murshidabad, died on June 24 as the crude bomb he was making exploded in the process. He was allegedly associated with TMC. Three other persons were injured as crude bombs were hurled in a tussle between workers of Congress and TMC in Raninagar, Murshidabad. House of Kuddus Ali, a contestant of Congress, was pelted with stones at Raninagar on June 24. Murshidabad is frequently witnessing the exchange of crude bombs between contesting parties.
Hollow Claims of TMC
After Mamata Banerjee’s public rally in Coochbehar on June 27, violence broke out between BJP and TMC in Coochbehar’s border-adjacent areas. While CM’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee took out a State-funded and police-protected rally in Coochbehar in April and rendered tall claims for a free and fair Panchayat Election, CM’s own public rally in the same district, after two months, kickstarted violence in Coochbehar. Clashes erupted in different villages while TMC’s Babu Haque was murdered in Gitaldaha of Dinhata. BJP workers were attacked in Garbhadanga village. Apart from Dinhata, Sitalkuchi and Tufanganj areas of Coochbehar, too, saw in violence while bullets were fired by TMC workers in Sitalkuchi along with collective vandalism of properties like houses, shops and motorbikes. Too many gunfights are being reported from Coochbehar as illegal arms are allegedly being imported from across the border. State Police had not been duly active in curbing violence and illicit imports. At the same time, BSF was accused by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of having shot innocent people in the border areas. CM’s statement indicated her support towards illegal cross-border transactions and her antagonism towards BSF’s action against the same. BJP workers were attacked at Tufanganj on June 28 as their houses and shops in Rampur village were vandalised. TMC had allegedly attacked the house of a BJP candidate, too, though TMC had denied such allegations. Independent candidates have also been subjected to attack in Coochbehar. The house of an independent candidate of Gitaldaha was allegedly burnt on June 28.
Apart from murders, clashes and violence not only between the ruling party and opposition candidates but also between different factions of the ruling party, are continuing in West Bengal. Hurling bombs, beating each other with rods, sticks and wickets and pelting stones at people, houses and police are happening on the ground on a regular basis. On June 26, CPM and TMC men indulged in a gunfight at Domkal, Murshidabad, which injured four persons, three of TMC and one of CPM. On the same day, one BJP candidate of Jhargram, belonging to the Kurmi community, Suvankar Mahato, was manhandled and beaten up allegedly by the Officer in Charge, Saifuddin Ahmed Khandkar, of Sankrail Police Station, Jhargram.
Leader of the opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, alleged that Mahato’s single fault was that he didn’t withdraw his nomination despite being threatened by the police and TMC men. Mahato, reportedly a cancer patient, had to be hospitalised.
Only in five days allowed by the State Election Commission, 4,932 nominations in Zilla Parishad, 34,445 in Panchayat Samiti and 1,96,087 nominations in Gram Panchayat were filed till June 16 afternoon. Of these 2,36,464 nominations in three layers of the rural body, 56,321 were filed by the BJP, 48,646 by CPM and 17,750 nominations were filed by the Congress party. TMC has filed 85,817 nominations, while independent candidates (16,293) and others (9,668) together have filed 25,961 in this voluminous rural body election. The concise duration of the nomination-filing period turned the whole process cut-throat, and people started indulging in rabid violence, especially in districts like South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad & Coochbehar.
Following in Footsteps of CPM
West Bengal is also a State of spine-chilling threats. CPM used to send white saaris to the houses of those candidates who CPM didn’t want to contest. To threaten such candidates, they threatened the woman of the house, indicating that she’d turn a widow to wear that white piece of cloth if her husband fought the election. TMC, this year, allegedly followed the same path to threaten quite a few opposition candidates by sending parcels of white saris. Besides, other kinds of threats are also being rendered. TMC candidate Haran Sheikh of South 24 Parganas called up BJP candidate Sabitri Bera’s son and said, “Why are you contesting? Have you done any unnayan (development) here? Had you done some, I would have removed myself from the contest and let you win. But you haven’t done any unnayan.” Sabitri Bera’s son replied, “How could we do anything for this place, uncle? Had we ever been at the helm of power? How was it possible for us to do anything?” From this point of rebuttal, Haran Sheikh turned odious and retorted, “Why is your mother contesting this election? What extra would she give in return? Let me sleep with her?” Such threats are ground realities and the audio of Haran Sheikh went viral though there was no news of Sheikh’s arrest by the State Police. Such Haran Sheikhs of West Bengal are trying to create a perception that they could allow a woman to contest a rural body election only if she paid them bribe money to do ‘unnayan’ i.e. development or she should remain prepared to face sexual assault.
Sabitri Bera and numerous BJP candidates had to stay out of their houses in party shelters till the deadline for withdrawal of nomination ended. This was done so that they could be saved from being bombarded with threats forcing them to withdraw their nominations.
While ceaseless violence continued in West Bengal, people on social media questioned Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s joining the opposition parties’ meeting in Patna on June 23. Such a meeting occurred with the objective of forming a grand alliance of parties opposing BJP to remove PM Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Mamata joined the meeting taking her nephew Abhishek Banerjee & Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim along. She said to the media that if Narendra Modi won in 2024, no further election would happen in India ever again, so Modi would have to be defeated and removed. Though it was a meeting of parties opposing BJP at the national level, she expressed her objection against being called ‘opposition’. She said, “Don’t call us opposition, we are also patriots.” While CPM & Congress workers are fighting against the TMC on the ground of West Bengal and often having cooperative alliances with the BJP karyakartas just in order to remove TMC, Mamata Banerjee became proactive in allying with both CPM & Congress’ top leadership in Patna. After such a meeting, TMC’s mouthpiece “Jago Bangla” published a photo of Mamata Banerjee with Rahul Gandhi that didn’t show CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, while West Bengal CPM’s mouthpiece “Ganashakti” printed a photo of Sitaram Yechury with some others who didn’t include Mamata Banerjee. Such photo-ops reflected both Mamata and CPM’s dishonest intention to mislead their corresponding followers about the reality of the two parties’ top-level collusion.
While reports of statewide violence kept people engaged, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury raised a really serious allegation on June 28 against the State Government. Adhir Chowdhury alleged that fake ballot papers were being printed by using State police to manipulate poll results. “ABP live” had reported the news in detail. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s allegation needs to be correlated with several allegations being continuously raised against the BDOs, SDPOs, ICs, SPs & DMs of the State who are being accused of taking illegal steps to favour the ruling party. Even Calcutta High Court had ordered the State Government to register FIR against an IC & an SDPO of Canning due to their inaction when violence broke out at the time of nomination-filing in Canning of South 24 Parganas district. It is also noteworthy that the State had immediately challenged such a Calcutta High Court Single Bench verdict in the Division Bench. GoWB’s promptness of action indicated how important such State Officials were for Mamata Banerjee’s rule to continue. After the High Court’s intervention, even the State Election Commission is mulling to send a show-cause notice to BDOs of Bhangar, South 24 Parganas and Minakhan, North 24 Parganas. BDOs in these places were accused of favouring the ruling party in the poll procedure. In Minakhan, a TMC candidate filed his nomination from Saudi Arabia while he left for Hajj long before the election was even announced in the State. Such incidents clearly indicated State Administration’s collusion with the ruling party. Such nexus was described as “politico-bureaucratic-criminal nexus” by an NGO fact-finding team that came to investigate post-poll West Bengal violence 2021 of which the present Bengal Governor was a member. It is time to solve the mystery behind the repeated electoral success of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal while TMC badly lost elections in other States wherever they contested. As a result of consistently poor performance in elections in other States, TMC also lost the “All India Party” status as declared by the Election Commission of India in April this year.
20,585 nominations forcibly withdrawn
On June 23, the Calcutta High Court sought a response from the West Bengal State Election Commission on the anomalous situation concerning the 2023 Panchayat Elections, wherein an astronomical 20,585 withdrawal of nominations has taken place. The BJP Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari’s moved the court challenging the State Election Commission’s wilful disobedience of the court’s past orders.
The court orally remarked, “We don’t understand how the Commission is being run…the voters themselves are complaining that someone who was desirous of filing nomination was not able and their right of choice is being affected…how is this possible….even, in that case, we have asked for a report…and then it was heard that almost 20,000 nominations have been withdrawn…speaking for myself, the Commission is usually always in touch with the Standing Counsels and they always respond to the orders of the Court and send reports on time…this is not happening…we don’t know how it runs here…”
274 seats remain uncontested
“We are examining a larger issue as to whether is it possible and feasible that 274 seats can remain uncontested and there is not even a single person, who is desirous of filing his nomination for anyone of the seats in the 10 Gram Panchayats, 30 Panchayat Samities and 3 Zilla Parishads” — Calcutta High Court on June 23.
Candidates’ Names Removed from Final List; Calcutta HC Takes Strong Exception
On June 26, the Calcutta High Court ordered the West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) to examine the allegations that certain candidates’ names, who were to contest the forthcoming panchayat elections, were deleted from the final list of contesting candidates.
Justice Amrita Sinha of the Calcutta HC stated that India being a democratic country, everyone has a right to choose a representative of their choice. when there is no rival candidate in an election, it demonstrates that all is not right within the State, as it robs the electors of their choice. All candidates wanting to contest the election should be permitted to face electors in order to save democracy, she stated.
Commenting on the role played by the Election Commission, she stated that the commission ought to act independently and not take sides, as no person has a right to be elected uncontested. She emphasised that corrupt practices of preventing a prospective candidate from filing nominations should not take place.
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