By Arun Srivastava
The nature and character of the West Bengal panchayat poll violence, which claimed 17 lives, two less than the 2018 poll violence, underscores an ominous development for the ruling Trinamool Congress which was at the receiving end of the brutality. This also underlines a significant shift in the pattern of the violence, on who is inflicting it and on whom. Out of the 17 persons who died in violence, nine were from TMC. Usually, the ruling party does not suffer huge casualties. But in this election, TMC’s loss could be described as substantial.
Electoral violence has been endemic in Bihar and West Bengal, as an instrument for seizure of power. In the past, the dominant caste, for preserving its class interest, has been using elections as an effective tool. A deeper analysis of the electoral violence would make it distinctly clear that the OBC and Dalits, who have been traditionally denied their rights, resorted to violence to assert their identity. In a way, electoral violence symbolises the fight for assertion/suppression of marginalised identities.
But of late, the nature and character of violence has undergone a sea change. Like a consumer commodity, the violence is also being marketed. The media, which has abandoned its ethical commitment, has been playing a significant role. Earlier, the electoral violence was a means to have a share in the political decision-making; now it is used to get a share of the government development money. In recent years, allocations for rural development, to be spent through panchayats, have seen many-fold increase.
Exposé of corruption cases involving massive government funds have been regularly tumbling out of the government enquiries and files. All political parties are desperate to tap into this stream of huge fund. Obviously, the leadership has to engage in some violence. Only twenty years back, a panchayat chief would be seen moving around barefoot or on a cycle. But now having a luxury car has become a political necessity to demonstrate muscle power.
Governor C V Anand Bose adopting proactive stance just ahead of the election and steadily humiliating the SEC Rajiv Sinha and publicly admonishing him for his failure to ensure a free and fair election, has already sent a clear signal that the BJP will resort to all kind of devices to win the election for exercising its authority and wrest control of rural Bengal. After his daylong visit to the areas where elections were held, Bose said: “This political holi with human blood has to end.” Over the last fortnight, the Governor visited Bhangar, Canning and Basanti in South 24 Parganas, besides Dinhata in Cooch Behar district. For the first time, Raj Bhavan played an active role in ensuring that a “violence-free election” takes place. He had opened a ‘Peace Home’ to address complaints of the aam aadmi. But his move failed to yield any result. At least 39 deaths had been witnessed during the 2013 panchayat election process, 36 in 2008 and 70 in 2003.
Besides Bihar, Bengal is the only state where its rural population has been the target of the BJP. BJP might have adopted a more aggressive posture in the state, if the party was not split vertically on the lines of turncoats and original cadres. This division has in fact come as a boon in disguise for the TMC to maintain its grip in other parts of the state. The original BJP cadres having a strong base, laid down by RSS, managed to swing the voters especially in the region of north Bengal.
The signal that the going would get tough for the TMC was also sent across by Md Salim (CPM state secretary), Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Congress state unit chief), and Sukanta Majumdar (BJP state unit chief), through their cumulative threats of positive resistance. This was more than mere warning for the TMC that it was losing peoples’ support. Had it not been the case, the sections among the common people would not have lent moral support to the opposition action.
Analysts and political circles nevertheless hold the view that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had sensed well before the electoral process was launched that a section of its support base was shifting back to its parent party, which was why she did not undertake extensive campaigning. Yet another factor which pointed to people getting disillusioned got manifest in low voter turnout of 66.28 per cent. This years vote was less by 5-7 percent compared to the usual voter turnout in Bengal’s countryside in all formats of elections.
Notwithstanding political and electoral violence being endemic in state, it has never discouraged the people to participate in the process. Even during the sixties and seventies, when the state witnessed unprecedented violence against the peoples’ struggle, the voter turnout had been over 72-75 percent. Voters also did not deter state witnessing “scientific” rigging, manipulation of voters’ lists, booth management and/or outright capture. But this time, it witnessed a drastic decline.
Though being goaded by the Calcutta High Court, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had sent central forces, it was not adequate to man all the polling stations. Incidentally, their role has come under scanner. Questions are being asked, why the central forces must not share the blame for the deaths? Wasn’t the deployment of central forces the main demand of the Opposition? Now that there are central forces across Bengal, why aren’t they being blamed for mishandling the entire voting process? Central forces were missing from most polling booths.
Soon after TMC leaders came out with this allegation, the vice-president of the BJP Dilip Ghosh accused the state government of not deploying the central forces. He also came out with the argument that if the central forces had been deployed, this number of people would not have lost their lives. In all fairness, he should have posed this question to Governor Bose who has been personally monitoring the election. Central forces were not posted even in Bhangar, which witnessed the first violent incident, even before the process of filing nominations had begun. Local newspapers carried reports that forces had not reached there till 1.30 pm. Quite interestingly, by that time polls were over. All 975 votes were already cast. Senior officials of the State Election Commission are on record saying that 590 companies had reached Bengal. The figure crossed the 600-mark by Saturday morning with several parts of the state going to polls without security cover.
SEC can deploy the forces. The Union home ministry had to dispatch the forces. The reports underline that with a target of 822 companies of central forces, IG of BSF, S.C. Budakoti, had decided to deploy at least four personnel at a polling station if it had one or at most two booths. It is worth recalling that while entertaining the petition from the BJP leaders, on July 4, Calcutta High Court had directed for deployment of central forces in every booth. That did not happen as the force refused to deploy less than 4 persons (half a company) at one place, said a senior police officer of the state police.
The result was inevitable.
Inability of the home ministry to deploy security forces smacks of some deep design with ominous intentions. Crime figures from the NCRB records are being played to send the message that Mamata has failed Bengal. Some BJP leaders have started asking for putting the state under president’s rule by dismissing the Mamata government. The NCRB has recorded 20 political killings on average every year in West Bengal, from 1999 to 2016. The latest round of violence has been mainly between the workers of TMC and BJP.
NCRB data also suggests that there have been as many as 47 political killings involving TMC and BJP workers since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, of which 38 occurred in South Bengal. Nonetheless analysts argue that the current surge in political violence is largely due to the aggressive push by the BJP to unseat the ruling TMC.
Meanwhile, what really has been the matter of concern is shifting of the loyalty by a section of minority voters, especially in north Bengal away from TMC. It is widely perceived that a section of the non-Bengali Muslims have been switching their allegiance to the Congress. Based on this feature, it is said that TMC may lose two Zilla parishads to the BJP in north Bengal and face stiff competition from the CPM and the Congress in north as well as south Bengal. However, the exit poll conducted by C-Voter has predicted that TMC may win 16 zilla parishads out of 20. Poll also suggests that TMC may retain the Zilla parishads in two Muslim-dominated Congress strongholds, Malda and Murshidabad, but with a slender margin. In the 2021 Assembly elections, TMC had won more than 90 per cent of the seats in these minority community-dominated districts.
Meanwhile, senior minister Sashi Panja asked,”27 people have been killed since the panchayat elections were announced on June 8 and 17 of them are from Trinamool, which is over 60 per cent of the total fatalities. If Trinamool were indeed instigating violence, as the media is alleging, why would their own workers be targeted and killed?”
Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Panchayat polls are being perceived as the reflection of the peoples’ mood. Even during his campaigning, the TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had harped on the importance of the polls in the perspective of Lok Sabha elections. (IPA Service)