The alleged intimidation of Opposition candidates and party workers in West Bengal in the run-up to the panchayat elections mirrors an entrenched and disturbing aspect of the state’s political culture. Both Congress and BJP have moved the High Court demanding that the small window for filing nominations announced by the State Election Commission (SEC) be extended, in light of bomb attacks and the threat of violence against their workers. The Court has ordered central forces to be deployed in areas where the state police presence is inadequate and also asked the SEC to consider extending the June 15 deadline. Most explanations for electoral violence in Bengal hark back to the use of party cadres and government machinery during the long Left rule. But for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in her third term in power, what has gone before is no longer an alibi or excuse.
In election after election — whether to local bodies or the state legislature — violence continues to mar the nomination process and the campaign. This month alone, there have been reports of clashes and crude bombs being hurled from Murshidabad, Birbhum, East Midnapore, East Burdwan, Coochbehar, North and South 24 Parganas. That bitter political rivals, BJP and Congress, are speaking in one voice underlines the gravity of the situation: “… the previous Panchayat elections conducted in the State of West Bengal in the year 2018 were also marred by the vices of violence, due to which fair and transparent elections could not be conducted,” says BJP Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari’s petition. “During the previous elections of Panchayats and Municipalities held in the year 2018 and 2022 respectively, the State of West Bengal had witnessed unprecedented violence and barbaric attacks on the democratic rights of citizens…” says State Congress Chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s affidavit.
Violence by party cadres in West Bengal does indeed date back to the days of Left rule. The CPM, in turn, could cite the Naxal movement or, going further back, the revolutionaries from Anushilan and Jugantar and their actions against British rule to justify as “structural” the violence that taints Bengal’s politics. The TMC must answer why, instead of delivering on its promise of change, it has only deepened political criminality. Even intra-party conflicts result in bloodshed — as happened with the killing of TMC member Bhadu Sheikh and others in an alleged retaliatory attack in 2022. Banerjee is no stranger to what Opposition leaders go through when faced with a violent state. And she has the political clout to draw the red lines for her party. Her continuing failure to do so is a stain on her government.
