Sankar Bhattacharya of CA Block would have been one of the first voters but he got stopped at the barricade in front of Central Mall. “I had come at 6.50 but they assaulted and humiliated me. After much persistence could I enter and vote at about 7.30,” said Bhattacharya.
“Election starts at 7 but chhappa voting started at 6.30!” shouted a stout woman in a red sari at about 7.10am. She was still not allowed to cross the barricade
At about 7am, a Tata Sumo with an NKDA board in front left the barricaded area. It was stuffed with youths who looked nothing like NKDA officials. They wore T-shirts and one of them had blonde streaks in his hair.
A man in a grey T-shirt walked in and out of the college all day and at 7.30am made a phone call that was audible to everyone. “Amader para-y chhappa shuru hoe gyachhe. Toder?”
The college may have been out of bounds for voters but it was a free-for-all for others. Young men walked in and out freely. Once in a while, the barricades gave way for a loud bike and an intimidating-looking rider in a white kurta to ride from side to side, making the handful of voters quickly step aside.
Inside the college, one’s throat burned with the smell of cigarettes that these men smoked everywhere. There was one room, slightly away from the others, where a couple of men stood guard throughout. When someone approached they were seen knocking on the door swiftly, as if to alert those inside. If one did manage to enter that room unannounced, everyone inside seemed to jump out of place and reshuffle.
At about 11am, more than 10 police people sat in the shaded driveway of the college watching news of the election on their phone. One of them listened to songs while a woman officer had taken off her shoes and was stretching her toes. In came a hassled-looking BA Block resident Srikrishna Banerjee. He rushed to the cops and poured his heart out about being accosted by the goons outside. The cops simply looked away.
“My wife was too scared to come out but I thought I would come and check the situation out for myself,” said the 72-year-old. “The goons pushed me and behaved so badly that now I’m scared for my life. If they see my inked finger on the way back they might attack me,” said the man who had started walking home without voting. It’s only when he saw a large group of neighbours entering the college that he took heart and went in to cast his vote with them.
A lady in a grey salwar was heard shouting at the police force that stood as mute spectator to the fracas — “I curse you people! Apnader bachchha ra bhugbe!”
The sidewalk in front of Utility Building in Action Area III. At 4.45pm, there were 32 people hanging out right in front of the polling station, flouting CrPC 144 within 200m radius of the booth.
“The goons stopped my bike and took away my key,” said Sanjay Gupta, a voter from Jal Vayu Towers. “I had to make calls to influential people before I got it back. They also removed the helmet from another biker and threw it away. That man ran for his life. What sort of an election is this!”
“This is shameful!” said Shyamali Banerjee of DC Block. “Not only did they stop us from coming to vote but they also snatched the phone from a lady who was trying to film the offence. And they started bashing up a man who was with her. Is this the smart city that is the pride of Bengal?”
“A woman young enough to be my granddaughter had the audacity to stop me from coming to vote,” said Faruk bin Quasem, an AA Block resident, who has himself been a presiding officer in past elections. “She asked me to boycott the elections. I told I can boycott my shongshar but not the elections! When I told them that I also had to go to the hospital after voting, they demanded to see my medical reports. I told them that I would gladly show them, but I were they literate enough to read them?”
Debraj Chakraborty, mayoral council member of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, chats on the phone at a temporary party office set up near the NKDA vaccination centre bus terminus. The Trinamul Congress leader, whose wife is the Rajarhat Gopalpur MLA ,was spotted near the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College polling station.
A 21-year-old voter was shocked with his experience inside the both. “A man escorted me to the enclosed space where I was voting. Then he tried to take my ballot paper away saying I was folding it wrong. Even when I tried to insert the paper into the box, the man placed his finger on the opening so it wouldn’t drop inside. At every step I had to assert myself and try to shake him off,” said the rattled college student.
“The presiding officer was writing only his initials on the ballot papers,” complained Pran Krishna Saha, an 83-year-old voter from CE Block. “When I noticed this, I insisted he sign his full name but he refused! This is the easiest way to cast false votes later.”
Eighty-six year old Jiban Ghosh had to wander in the heat for three hours before he could vote. “They told me to go home as the election was being boycotted. I sat near the barricade and waited for my friends to come and we approached the police for help,” said the Balaka resident.
BJP candidate Sudipta Ghosh voted but only while leaving the college did she realise they had not inked her.
At Utility Building
“I parked my car and walked into the Utility Building marvelling at how empty the approach was. The moment I was in the booth the scene changed. One of them standing at the covered voting enclosure took the ballot paper from me, did the stamping and cast the vote. Only the ballot counterfoil has my fingerprint. So officially I have voted! How would I protest? They had a hundred accomplices waiting outside at their beck and call while I was alone. There was a woman constable and a civic volunteer in the booth. I don’t blame them. They too have families. The uniformed cops were on the main road to Uniworld City, that too on the opposite footpath!” said a resident of Action Area 1D, who requested to stay anonymous.