The way rigging went unabated even during the re-election, it seems democracy has breathed its last in India’s ‘cultural capital’
Democracy, my foot! Where were you when the previous left Governments were raping it for the last so many yearsIJ Don’t ask silly questions. It is not good for your health and security, because not everyone here is in my control. It is very hot and humid here; don’t harm your health. Go back home and take rest. I can give you a vehicle if you want.”
That was a specimen of a spine-chilling threat from a Trinamool Congress leader and a Minister when your writer complained to him about being literally caned and heckled by some of his henchmen who had jammed a polling booth at Dum Dum on May 12.
It is not de rigueur for a non-partisan correspondent to wear one’s heart on his sleeve. But at the same time it is not easy for a self-respectingjournalist to allow himself to be treated in such a manner by “half-literate” netas.
The way rigging went unabated even during the re-election, it seems democracy has breathed its last in India’s “cultural capital” — West Bengal. Interestingly, after letting Trinamool cadre run riot, Election Commission’s Special Observer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh displayed some honesty by conceding that his panacea for Bihar and UP elections were misfit for Bengal.
He was repeatedly alerted before the elections about the highly volatile situation that prevailed in Bengal where a woman was not only gang-raped for contesting a trifle school-governing body election but was also electrocuted. While this crime was perpetrated by Trinamool goons at Egra near Nandigram a few months ago, hoodlums of the ruling party penalised a left worker by cutting off a breast of his close relative at Arambagh in Hooghly on May 1. His only fault was defying Trinamool diktats and working as a polling agent for his party.
It is not that Rakesh, along with his team of observers, was unaware of the ground realities in Bengal; they simply underperformed for reasons best known to them. Before starting his innings, the Special Observer had bragged about his “medicines” to ensure free and fair elections in Bengal. However, he didn’t try it. Failure is not an offence, but connivance and dereliction certainly are. Enigmatically, he didn’t take note of the remarks of Trinamool’s Birbhum strongman Anubrata Mandal, who declared his immunity to Rakesh’s medication following complaints of rigging in Birbhum and Bolpur seats.
Mandal’s home-grown terror kept Birbhum on tenterhooks since last year’s panchayat elections when he publicly directed his men to torch houses belonging to Opposition members and bomb police vehicles. His call was promptly answered by his cronies who shot dead the father of a rebel party man. While the case has been shuttling between the High Court and Supreme Court, Mandal has got off scot-free for being Mamata’s “highly efficient organiser.”.
While in Bhangore Assembly segment of Jadavpur constituency 200 of 265 booths were captured, in neighbouring Joynagar more than 100 such booths fell into the hands of Trinamool operators. It was shown on television camera how Farak Mollah, a local Trinamool leader at Diamond Harbour seat from where Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek was contesting, was personally pressing the buttons for other voters.
Hundreds of booths in Barasat and Krishnagore constituencies saw voters keeping themselves indoors following threats from the ruling party goons. As per post-poll reports, booths at De Ganga, Berachampa, Hasnabad and elsewhere witnessed about 95 per cent polling with barely 7-8 votes going to the Opposition parties.
Ironically, out of the 11 parliamentary constituencies in North and South 24 Parganas and Nadia the ruling party had lost in eight of these constituencies in the panchayat elections held barely ten months ago.
The intriguing question is what happened in the 10-12 months that saw such a positive swing in favour of the ruling party. The answer lies in the thousands of un-responded complaints of rigging.
The moot point is what prevented Rakesh, armed with supreme power to make preventive arrests, from picking up political gang lords in Birbhum, Hooghly, 24 Parganas and elsewhere. Another riddle is the Commission’s inability to swing into action when its police observer, a senior IPS officer, was heckled by Trinamool men at Behrampore. The cop was forced to apologise by the Trinamool for blocking their illegal motorbike rally.
Instead of instilling confidence among voters and striking terror in the minds of mischief makers, Rakesh diminished whatever little trust voters had in the EC by making reckless statements like “What can I do if some parties cannot provide polling agentsIJ” knowing well that the Trinamool terror had prevented them from coming forward.
He was not unaware of the public speeches of senior Trinamool leaders like Saugato Roy when he called upon his colleagues to tell the Marxists not to make a fuss before the polls “as there will be no CRPF in the bylanes.”
“It was strange to note that the Commission ignored the maps we provided them indicating the vulnerable areas. It is also strange to note how several booths earmarked for video-monitoring were left in the lurch. In many places they covered video cameras with towels. It is also curious to note how the system — providing real-time coverage of polling — suffered a link failure,” complained CPI(M) Jadavpur candidate Sujan Chakrabarty.
The upshot
There is a 3 per cent drop in voters’ turnout compared to the figures of 2009. Add another two per cent on account of bogus voting. These were enough to tilt the result in favour of a particular party in a closely fought four-cornered contest.
Rakesh would not explain the reason behind his conspicuous absence from places of violent occurrences recorded by the television cameras. Who will mind the 50,000 poor families that have fled home so farIJ Not the Commission or its match referees of course, because it seems that the poll panel was simply concerned about conducting elections and get rid of the headache.
The Bengal Opposition has already raised questions and quite justifiably as to why he left the State mysteriously for some “urgent” work in Patna just before the third round of polls, specifically when the violence started during this phase and culminated in the fifth round. Though Bengal got a record number of ‘match referees’, including police observers, only a few seemed to discharge their duty objectively. Small wonder why Basirhat BJP candidate Samik Bhattacharya has demanded a probe into the bank accounts and call lists of some of the EC officials.
Congress leader JP Majumdar has asked for tracing their locations during the polls by monitoring the mobile towers. Junior Railway Minister Adhir Chowdhury has charged Rakesh with dereliction of duty demanding his suspension. The reason behind the disquiet is an open secret. It can be guessed in the statement of a Central paramilitary constable: “We can control the situation in the blink of an eye, but the big officials are afraid of giving orders”.
Considering their political genesis, the question is not whether Mamata Banerjee and her men would lob rosogollas, and not bombs, at the free-thinking voters during the elections. The question rather is whether the match referees would allow themselves to be a part of a mandatory match fixing, which is a fad in the high and mighty contemporary Bengal. The question also is whether only ill-gotten chit funds played a role in the rigged polls or some foreign force worked clandestinely to keep both the BJP and the left at bay. Are past incidents like Purulia arms dropping case, or the regular visits of some top officials of a distant power to Writers’ Building an indicationIJ
Who will be responsible for the civil strife and loss of lives if violence takes place in the run up to the Assembly election in 2016IJ Going by the dropping percentage of votes for the Trinamool from a whopping 54% in 2011 to a meagre 39% (inclusive of the rigged votes) Mamata Banerjee has lost the moral force to rule Bengal. The people are watching this.
Is the Election Commission listeningIJ
(The writer is The Pioneer’s special correspondent, Kolkata)