A galaxy of Bengal civil society members were planning to meet the Chief Election Commissioner of India demanding the “strongest measures” to ensure free and fair elections in the next year’s Assembly elections.
The group could contain actors, writers, retired judges, bureaucrats, professors, et al. “The present Trinamool Congress Government had raped and murdered democracy and in the given situation there is no hope of any better thing happening in the coming Assembly elections. So we want the ECI to take the strongest measures so that the people are able to cast their votes freely with confidence and without fear,” actor-dramatist Kaushik Sen said, adding a team of Kolkata intellectuals were planning to meet the Chief Election Commissioner.
“There is an urgent need to recover huge numbers of arms and ammunition — including crude bombs — that have been piled up throughout the State,” said a former IPS officer reminding how 14 people had died at Pingla early this year and several others died in Birbhum and Burdwan districts. “These arms have to be recovered first before elections take place.”
The reaction came close on the heels of organised violence taking place in the three corporation elections of Asansol, Bidhnanagar and Bally last Saturday whence booths were captured by armed goons of the ruling party, voters were attacked and at least 23 journalists covering the proceedings were badly beaten up.
In all these places, Opposition left, BJP and the Congress had done better in the general elections. To say the least, the brutalities were perpetrated in the presence and at the instigation of senior Trinamool Congress leaders, State Ministers, MlAs and top police officers even as the State Election Commission looked the other way, the civil society members said, adding they would carry footages for the ECI’s reference.
“The citizen’s experience of the past three-four elections including the 2013 panchayat elections, 2014 General Elections and the two civic elections taking place this year including the one that was organised on Saturday was so bitter that they would want to forget it soon. We had never experienced such a scene in the past 50 years,” said Meeratun Nahar, a retired professor, who had backed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during her Nandigram movement.
“We want Central forces to be moved in well in advance so that areas can be dominated as reports of organised threats to voters and snatching of voters’ identity cards come from almost all the districts” said a retired bureaucrat, adding as recently as in August more than 6500 EPIC cards were recovered from vats at Behala in southern fringes of Kolkata.
These cards were seized from the voters disabling them from casting their votes and dumped in a local BDO office from where they were disposed off in a local vat before being discovered by the local citizens.
In a related development the sole BJP MlA from the State Samik Bhattacharya was likely to meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to draw his attention in the present anarchic situation in Bengal sources quoting him said. He was also likely to raise the infiltration issue that could throw and impact in the next year’s elections.
“The Trinamool Congress seems to have mastered the evil practice of the CPI(M). What they did in pockets this Government is doing everywhere. If this is not stopped now then Bengal will slip into a civil war,” said Bolan Ganguli writer wondering “what will happen to these young men who the Trinamool is arming to win elections.”
Among the intellectuals who support the protest against the organised violence are actors Soumitra Chattopadhyay, Aparna Sen, Parambrata, Kaushik Sen, Abir Chatterjee, retired Supreme Court Judge Ashok Ganguli, authors, Bolan Ganguli, Sreejato, professor Meeratun Nahar etc.
Meanwhile in a peculiar flip-flop State Election Commissioner SR Upadhyay who first postponed counting for an indefinite period, then announced a fresh date for counting on October 9 after meeting senior State ministers did not show up at the Commission office on Tuesday. Earlier he met Governor KN Tripathi for an hour.
Following intense agitation from the Opposition Upadhyay had ordered repolls in a few booths on October 8. But he was not available on Tuesday to announce which were the booths where repoll would take place leaving the poll staff in a quandary.