Voters, officials to arrests, motorcycles: EC with a difference in Bengal polls

The ECI began with a slew of transfers in Bengal hours after announcing the poll schedule, including two of its top-most officials, the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police.

* Curbs on motorcycle use: On April 20, the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer’s office wrote to District Election Officers (DEOs) and Commissioners of Police imposing a ban on motorcycles on the road from 6 pm to 6 am, starting 48 hours before each of the two polling phases (April 23 and 29).

The CEO’s letter said this was “in order to ensure free, fair, peaceful and violence-free elections… and to prevent any form of intimidation and source jamming”. It banned motorcycle rallies altogether and motorcycle riding from 6 pm to 6 am, except for emergencies. It also banned pillion riding the whole day from two days before polling, except for medical emergencies etc.

On the day of the polls, that is Thursday and April 27, the CEO said “family pillion riding” would be allowed, from 6 am to 6 pm, for the purpose of voting.

On Wednesday, the ECI issued a modified order, saying, “In addition to exemption given to service providers such as Ola/Uber/Zomato/Swiggy and similar Home Delivery agencies, exemption is also given to office-going riders carrying proper identity cards.”

This was after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee questioned the motorcycle curbs, saying: “How will people go home if bikes can’t run? So many people work, live far away in villages. What kind of farman (diktat) is this? It’s badmashi, shaitaani (mischief, bad intent).”

A former Chief Election Commissioner told The Indian Express that curbs had been placed on motorcycle riding in Bengal in earlier elections as well, including on roadside “carrom clubs”, as often their presence was seen as an intimidatory tactic. However, sources said, the motorcycle curbs were earlier more in the nature of cracking down on bike rallies.

* Arrest of political workers: While law enforcement agencies do make preventive detentions of known miscreants ahead of elections in every state, Bengal has seen lists of hundreds of “troublemakers” across districts drawn up by the ECI, including sitting Trinamool Congress MLAs, with instructions to arrest them in case they intimidate voters.

On Wednesday, the Calcutta High Court stayed these lists till June 30, acting on a PIL. A Division Bench held that the police observer had “erred in issuing blanket direction by treating certain citizens as troublemakers”. However, it made it clear that the order will not come in the way of authorities to proceed in case of an offence.

The petitioner’s counsel Kalyan Banerjee, also a TMC MP, claimed before the court that many of those in the list were elected representatives, such as MPs, MLAs, councillors.

EC sources said that District Magistrates, who are DEOs, are empowered to issue “bound down orders” against those they deem as potential troublemakers, and that MLAs have faced similar detentions in the past.

* Unprecedented voter deletions: While the ECI carried out a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across eight other states and three Union Territories ahead of these Assembly elections, the exercise in Bengal has been unique on several accounts.

First, thousands of Central government employees were deployed as “micro-observers”, in a first for any such revision exercise, whose assignment was to review decisions taken by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). Under the Representation of the People Act, the EROs are the statutory authority to maintain electoral rolls.

Then, in another unprecedented step, the Supreme Court appointed 700 judicial officers to decide the fate of 60.06 lakh electors, whose eligibility to be on the voting list was questioned on grounds of another unprecedented category: “logical discrepancies”. This led to 27.10 lakh electors being deleted.

* Large-scale transfers: The shunting of the DGP and Chief Secretary was just the start, with the ECI overhauling the bureaucratic framework across the state, down to Joint BDO level.

ECI sources said more than 500 officers have been transferred since the polls were announced. Prominent posts with new appointees include Police Commissioner of Kolkata, ADG (Law and Order), IG, DIGs, in-charges of 173 police stations, DEOs, inspectors, BDOs, and returning officers of bitterly contested seats such as Nandigram and Bhabanipur.

The ECI also sought lists of local police officers under whose jurisdiction pre- as well as post-poll violence had happened in the 2021 Assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Banerjee has called the transfers “a deliberate design to seize control of West Bengal”, and staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha on March 16 in protest.

* Surge in Central forces: Around 2,400 companies or about 2.4 lakh personnel have been deployed in the state for the elections, as per ECI sources. Like in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the ECI has said it will be retaining some of the Central paramilitary forces till after counting, to prevent any post-poll violence.

At a rally Wednesday, Mamata said: “This is unprecedented. Are they trying to intimidate me by deploying so many forces?”