The Election Commission of India has notified the longest-ever Assembly polls in Bengal, stretching in eight phases from March 27 to April 29 and the result coming up on May 2.

The unprecedented duration of the polling process prompted chief minister Mamata Banerjee to wonder aloud whether the schedule had been drafted “according to the convenience of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah”.

Mamata also pointed out that the combined firepower of the Centre and its organisations is being marshalled against the last remaining woman chief minister in the country.

Another feature that stood out in the schedule was the poll panel’s departure from the usual north-to-south sequence of polling. Besides, voting in some districts has been split over three phases. Mamata suspects this was done to polarise the voters in her strongholds.

A long-drawn process does help parties without tall local leaders and those that depend on national figures for campaigning. More days of polling means these national leaders can campaign more in the state, focusing on each region phase by phase. The current schedule offers as many as 23 days during which elections will be held only in Bengal.

However, Mamata, undoubtedly the biggest star campaigner for her party, can also similarly make the most of the long schedule.

Bengal had seen seven-phase polling for the general election in the past but not eight phases.

Calcutta and its immediate neighbourhood will go to polls on April 22 (areas like Salt Lake) April 26 (areas in south Calcutta) and April 29 (areas in north Calcutta).

Chief election commissioner Sunil Arora, who demits office in April, announced the schedule in New Delhi on Friday. The commission attributed the long schedule to factors such as a nearly 32 per cent rise in the number of booths — from around 77,000 to over 1.01 lakh — because of the Covid-19 safety protocol, besides the electioneering challenges in the state.

Not long after the commission’s news conference ended in Delhi, Mamata told journalists in Calcutta: “Eight phases? Why… to make it easy for whom? We expect the ECI (Election Commission of India) to be a little rational…. The ECI is such an important body, if they don’t give justice to the state and its people, then where will people go?”

“Whatever I came to know from the BJP party’s sources, whatever the BJP had decided, as per the BJP’s requisition…. Have these phases been decided according to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah? So that they do not face difficulties in going to the constituencies of their choice. After finishing off with Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala… play a 23-day game here?” asked the Trinamul Congress chief. The elections in the other four states will be over by April 6 while they will continue in Bengal until April 29.

“We don’t mind. Even in this game, we will decimate them. The game will be over in eight phases. We will hand you a drubbing, because we are from the grassroots,” she added.

Mamata suggested she believed that the schedule would certainly benefit the BJP as it would chalk out an elaborate campaign for Bengal, spearheaded by Modi, Shah and party chief J.P. Nadda with their rallies likely to be scheduled just before and during the phases of polling.

The Trinamul chief hinted at an attempt at misogyny. “Just one woman chief minister left in the country. The entire central government and all its organisations… such planning?” she asked.
Mamata urged women, who are not only half of the electorate but also a crucial base of her support, to give a befitting reply.

A Trinamul insider said: “She has already created a narrative that suggests the poll panel is dancing to the BJP’s tune and the entire might of the central government has been deployed to attack her. She would go across Bengal and hammer home this point.”

The BJP welcomed the election schedule. The Congress and the Left in Bengal were non-committal, confining themselves to expressing the hope that the commission would do its job of ensuring free, fair and peaceful polls.

Mamata criticised the division of voting phases in the districts.

“Tell me why half or one-third of districts are going to polls (in a particular phase)? What did you do… splitting districts as part I, part II, part III. Are these BA exams or what?” she asked.
“For instance, South 24-Parganas, simply because we are strong there, three-phase polling. Bujhun obostha (Understand the situation)!” she added.

She went on to tie the splitting of the districts by the commission to the polarisation tactics of the saffron camp.

“You are splitting districts, you are splitting mothers and sisters, dishonouring them… splitting siblings, splitting communities, splitting Bengalis, splitting the nation…. But remember, Bengal’s own daughter Mamata Banerjee is telling you, I know Bengal thoroughly, with over 40 years in politics…. Every conspiracy of yours, we will shatter,” she said.

Mamata repeatedly underscored her respect for the commission and all constitutional bodies, urging Nirvachan Sadan to think of Bengal as its own state.

“Please consider Bengal as your own state. Don’t consider it through the eyes of the BJP. Whatever their party decided, I have seen their lists from their party office, that same list we are seeing today. I am really sorry, I am shocked,” she said.

“We know all the drama, all the games…. The BJP has the power of agencies, of the Centre…. If you allow their misuse for the state election, there will be a big, big blunder.”

No NRI vote

A proposal to offer the Electronically Transferrable Postal Ballot System to overseas voters will not be implemented in these polls. The external affairs ministry has suggested further consultations with stakeholders before a decision is taken on extending this facility, currently offered only to members of the armed forces and any other person covered under the Army Act.

Postal ballot

As in the Bihar polls last year, regular postal ballot facilities will be offered to the disabled, voters aged above 80, voters employed in essential services and those who are in Covid quarantine. Election staff have been recognised as frontline workers by the Union health ministry to make them eligible for vaccine shots at the earliest.