Polling for the upcoming Panchayat elections is due on July 8 in West Bengal. With elections approaching there is a significant rise in poll violence. Since the election dates were announced, more than a dozen of party workers have died.
The road to election for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, looks tough this year. TMC has counter-charges of corruption and anti-incumbency. For Bengal, it is quite a theory that those performing well in the grassroot elections will do well in the state assembly elections too.
Over 160,000 candidates have filed their nominations for 63,229-gram panchayat seats, 9,730 seats of panchayat samitis and 928 seats of zilla parishads.
As far as the data is concerned, if we study the statistics of the last two panchayat elections under TMC rule, 39 people died in 2013 and 29 people in 2018 in poll-related violence. While the 2003 panchayat polls (under Left regime) saw the highest number of deaths (76), in 2018—during Mamata’s reign—34 per cent of panchayat poll seats went uncontested, and this was alleged to be due to fear psychosis in the opposition.
Notably, the focal point of this violence in the election remains three main regions of the state and they are–North, South and Central Bengal.
North Bengal has eight districts, and in the previous Loksabha and the state assembly elections the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has performed well in these areas, this is why violence is rampant in the region. Prominent TMC leaders in the region are Udayan Guha and Union Minister of State, Nishith Pramanik. Also, violent activities have been rampant in the Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur The BJP state president, Sukant Majumdar also comes from this region and hence for TMC it is a do-or-die situation. Readers can now understand the reason behind the violence.
In central Bengal, Congress and its alliance with the Left front are in good positions, especially in the Malda and Murshidabad regions. The region is facing violence as TMC is loosing its spot. The big faces of the region are state Congress president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and ex-railway minister Abdul Gani Khan Choudhury. In the central Bengal region, TMC and BJP have struggling with violence in the Nadia and Birbhum area. The goon-turned-politician Anubrata Mandal is in Tihar Jail, the CM Mamata herself is looking after the political discourse in the region.
This shows of the desperation of the ruling TMC which is losing ground in the above-mentioned regions with every passing day. The upcoming Panchayat election. This has become an essential part of the Bengal elections where not a single poll passes without violence.
If we take a look into the history of violence in the state, it shows:
In the 1960s, the Congress’s dominance was challenged by the Left and regional parties amid strong turbulence that had built the reputation of West Bengal as a turbulent state. In the 1970s, Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its friends and foes and the Naxalite movement escalated the violence several notches. In the 1980s, the Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left Front were engaged in settling scores through violent confrontations.
In the 1990s, a revival of the Congress produced leaders like Mamata Banerjee and that started off a new era of violence. By 2008, Maoist violence was resurgent and the Trinamool Congress had gained enough strength and substance to take on the CPI(M), in very violent encounters in Nandigram. The new theatres of “operations”, with bombs, guns, squads and ambushes included Khejuri in East Midnapore, Lalgarh in West Midnapore, Singur, Khanakul and more.
The violence has never affected voter enthusiasm and determination to participate in the rites of democratic politics. Through the years of turbulence in West Bengal, voter turnout has been sustained at a high of over 72-75 per cent, though in some elections the peaks have been higher. Despite West Bengal’s reputation for rigging the polls, by “scientific” manipulation of voters lists and booth management or outright capture, there is no dispute that people turn out in very large numbers to cast their ballot.
What is beyond dispute is that political parties, especially the ruling party and the emerging alternative or principal challenger, have the remarkable organisational capability to man the polling stations, and the voters and get the mandate.
Many predicted that the 2023 panchayat elections would be a tough challenge. The expectations are turning out to be accurate. In the normal course, it is the ruling party that is challenged, which means the Trinamool Congress. This time, the challenge is, it appears, for the parties in Opposition, starting with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress which is engaged in defending its turf and the CPI(M).
Violence during the filing of nominations were expected and the same happened. Till the Trinamool Congress gets down to filing nominations for all the seats in the panchayat elections, the violence – bombs hurled, clashes with bamboo poles, sticks and stumps and other deadly implements — will remain between the parties opposing each other in the local areas. This would include clashes between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP, the CPI(M), the Congress and ISF and between some of these opposition parties vying for area domination.
The ruling TMC and Mamata are up struggling for the upcoming elections amidst anti-incumbency for having ruled the Panchayats for almost 15 years now. The TMC has to counter the instances of corruption including the teacher recruitment scandal, the illegal coal mining scandal and the illegal transborder cattle trade. Even after the enormous fall-out of the voters, Mamata is in a state of fear.
