The violence in West Bengal seems to be unrelenting with reports of fresh clashes amid repolling for the single-phase panchayat polls in several areas on Monday. At least 19 have been killed during the election, and 22 in the run-up to it, despite the deployment of nearly 60,000 central security personnel after the high court’s nudge.
Front pages of newspapers prominently featured reports about the violence on Monday, with editorials pointing to the responsibility of the Trinamool Congress state government as well as the state election commission.
In an editorial headlined “broken ballot”, the Indian Express noted that there are reports from several districts of booth capturing, damaged ballot boxes and attacks on presiding officers. “This violence is not an aberration: It is entrenched in the state’s political culture, with parties in government – the TMC now, and the CPM and Congress before it – wielding it to control the street, and thereby, monopolise state power. This newspaper found that, in village after village, the TMC systematically used bombs, barricades and cadres to ensure that opposition candidates and supporters were unable to move about on polling day. Where they have the clout to do so, some opposition parties have acted in a similar manner.”
“West Bengal seems to be frozen in the past, with parties continuing to nurture a political economy of patronage and extortion”. “The onus of ensuring a safe election is not on uniformed personnel alone – the political class in the state, especially the ruling party and State Election Commission, bears a lion’s share of that responsibility,” read the editorial.
The IndIan Express covered the news as a double-column report on the front page, with a report about the blame game between authorities on page 7. The report on the inside page, headlined “blame game on central forces’ deployment”, noted that the BJP has alleged that central forces were completely absent in several areas.
“Even as polling was on, BSF IG S C Budakoti, the coordinator of Central forces in the state, wrote to State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha complaining that they were not given adquate information for proper deployment. Sinha, on the other hand, has said that the Central forces failed to reach on time, with many landing only in the final hours of polling even in areas which have been seeing violence for days,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the Economic Times, in its editorial headlined “violence needs to stop in Bengal now”, pointed out that “the buck stops with the state administration”. “It must be understood that the cadre violence on display is both a show of power – literally ‘threat perception’ – as well as a conduit for complaints and finger-pointing. The final voter turnout of 80.9 percent hardly indicates voter courage in such a constant state of boil. It suggests coercion or ‘yeh saab idhar chalta hain,’ or both. Bengal needs to be protected. Democracy can follow.”
The front page had two reports, including one headlined “Trinamool got help from Centre: Cong”. It featured Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s remarks that TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee will break the opposition alliance ahead of the 2024 polls. “Alleging that Mamata will team up with the BJP, the Congress leader claimed that Trinamool Congress received tacit help from the Centre to loot the vote as CAPF was not sent in time, leading to large scale violence in West Bengal and killing of 15 people.”
The Kolkata-based Telegraph, did not carry any editorial on the events in the state and seemed to blame the centre for the situation.
A five-column lead report on the front page on Monday, headlined “blame game over forces”, pointed out that the BSF coordinator for the deployment of central forces has claimed that he never received a list of the sensitive booths from the state poll panel despite reminders, but the state poll panel chief has denied the allegation.
It said that central forces had “largely been invisible” and claimed that BSF deputy inspector general SS Guleria’s remarks were “clearly aimed at deflecting the blame for the mayhem on the state poll panel and the Bengal administration”.
Meanwhile, the Hindustan Times featured the news as the lead on its front flap with a report headlined “Violence continues in Bengal, several areas to vote again”. On page 9, it had another report headlined “‘No CAPF to stop miscreants, we watched helplessly’: Bengal poll officials”. According to the report on the inside page, polling officials claimed that supporters of a particular political party were involved in malpractices such as booth capturing and damaging of ballot boxes.
A day before the elections, the paper also carried an editorial on “why violence persists in Bengal”, pointing to “three reasons”.
“The first is historical. The violent antecedents of pre-Independence politics in the province and the upheaval caused by the carnage of Partition left deep scars on the socio-political psyche of the state…as the state slowly transformed into what political scientist Dwaipayan Bhattacharya terms a party society, these old fault lines bubbled back to the surface, and were used adroitly to capture ground.”
“The second is political. In a populous and largely rural state, the Left adopted land and resource mobilisation as an emotive issue, and used rural units as instruments of control, not just for elections but also for everyday life. In a state where rural bodies were up and running decades before the 1993 reforms operationalised panchayati raj across India, parties used the rural governance machinery as extensions of the party arm…when the Bharatiya Janata Party first found a toehold in the state, it did so by capturing panchayats in 2018. No wonder that the TMC is keen to consolidate its power this time around.”
“And the third is mathematical. As political scientist Neelanjan Sircar wrote on this page, contrary to popular perception, parties don’t pay an adverse cost for unleashing violence. In fact, there exists a positive relationship between seats that went uncontested (a good proxy for areas that saw violence meant to stop Opposition candidates from filing papers) and strike rates in polls. This is the instrumental reason for the persistence of political violence – it works.”
On the deployment of forces
In the run-up to the elections, several papers had noted the significance of the Calcutta high court’s order to bring in central forces. “The State Election Commission (SEC) initially appeared reluctant to heed calls by Opposition parties to bring in central forces to boost security arrangements. A perceived delay in identifying sensitive areas resulted in the Calcutta High Court ordering the poll body to ask for and deploy central forces,” noted an editorial in the Hindu on June 23.
“The controversy flags the issue of political violence, which is quite endemic to West Bengal. Each election sets off a round of violence and demands for central forces. The federal principle that law and order is under the State’s domain is often strained and tested at such times. The High Court had ordered a CBI investigation into incidents of serious violence after the last Assembly election in 2021. A truly independent election watchdog and a sense of responsibility among all political parties are necessary to preserve the purity of the election process.”
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