The Trinamul Congress was disappointed on Saturday that it was on the receiving end of Opposition parties in many pockets where alleged electoral malpractices and violence occurred.
This was a marked departure from polling days in local body elections in recent memory.
Since the notification-filing phase, till the end of Friday, at least 22 people had died in political violence, including 10 related to the ruling party. On Saturday alone, at least 17 were added to the toll, including seven from Trinamul.
Not since the panchayat elections of 2008, which showed the first signs of Trinamul’s significant electoral rise in the final years of the Left regime, has the state witnessed such an instance of an Opposition fight-back in numerous places across the state.
While this might not have any lasting impact on next year’s general election, which would anyway be contested on a slew of other crucial issues of a much larger scale, Trinamul having to lodge scores of serious complaints of violence, malpractice, and general vitiation of the poll atmosphere on a panchayat poll day ought to be alarming to 30B Harish Chatterjee Street.
A Trinamul MP, on the condition of anonymity, admitted to these being worrisome symptoms. “I do not remember the last time we had to flag so many malpractice or violence-related concerns in an election not under the Election Commission of India.”
“I don't think we really took seriously the repeated threats of so-called resistance from Md. Salim (CPM state secretary), Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Congress state unit chief), and Sukanta Majumdar (BJP state unit chief). In many places, common people in large numbers joined workers and leaders of Opposition parties in the violence against us,” he added. “We should take note, duly analyse, and initiate corrective measures before the Lok Sabha elections.”
From Bankura to Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur to East Midnapore, and from North 24-Parganas to Malda, the complaints from the ruling party kept pouring from minutes after polling began at 7am.
Trinamul state general-secretary Kunal Ghosh said the Opposition had no right to blame the ruling establishment for violence when so many victims were from the ruling camp.
“The Opposition parties are marketing violence. We don’t want a single death to take place, but the majority of those who have lost their lives are Trinamul workers. If, indeed, Trinamul was instigating the violence, as the biased media has been alleging, why would they target their own workers?” he asked.
“Why are the central forces not being blamed for the deaths? Wasn’t the deployment of central forces the main demand of the Opposition? Now that there are central forces across Bengal, why aren’t they being blamed for mishandling the entire voting process?