BJP TODAY

June 1--15, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 11

CPI-M wins Bengal Panchayat Poll by shedding blood
Brief Report on Panchayat Elections, West Bengal held on 11th May, 2003 from Tathagata Roy, President West Bengal BJP

Respected Venkaiahji

As apprehended, the Panchayat Elections in West Bengal turned out to be a farce in the electoral sense and a gruesome tragedy in the human sense. Today's Ananda Bazar Patrika, the Bengali daily with a nine lakh-plus circulation published this news under 3.5 cm. Headlines which read "GRAM BANGLAY ROKTOSNAN" (Bloodbath in Rural Bengal). The Bengali daily Bartaman, with a four lakh-plus circulation has printed a headline "PANCHAYAT VOTE-E BENAJIR SONTRAS" (Unprecedented terror during Panchayat polls). The Hindustan Times' headline is "BENGAL BLEEDS IN TURF WAR" while that of the Asian Age is "20 KILLED AS BLOOD BLOTS BALLOT BOX". The Statesman has reported "BLOODY RURAL POLLS LEAVE 20 DEAD ¾ BUT STATE ELECTION COMMISSIONER SAYS IT IS PEACEFUL".

In fact, one remarkable feature of the elections is the disgustingly partisan manner in which the State Election Commissioner, a retired IAS Officer called Ajoy Sinha, has acted ¾ more about him later. Another feature worth mentioning at the very outset is the fact that this time the CPI(M)'s atrocities have been directed as much against their own Left Front allies, principally against the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) as against Trinamool and BJP. As to the number of dead and wounded, while there are minor disagreements is assessment, it is gathered that there have been 20 cases of death and 200 of serious injuries. Yet another point worth mentioning is that the casualties have a very large number from among the minority community. In fact, among 16 dead reported in the Ananda Bazar Patrika, 2 are Hindu and 1 unidentified, while 13 are Muslim of which 2 are women. These two, Marzina Bewa and Madina Bibi, are said to be supporters of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI), an orthodox Marxist party, from the district of South 24-Parganas. They were standing in a queue waiting for their chance to vote when they were shot at point blank range by CPI(M) gunmen.

I have been keeping you apprised of the situation from time to time since the runup to the elections started, and had also sent two reports yesterday based on information obtained from the districts. In this report I shall try to summarise the situation as it exists on 12th May morning.

The Panchayat elections in West Bengal this year have been marked by a different kind of technique of rigging, namely that of total denial of nominations. Over vast stretches of rural West Bengal the population is told in no uncertain terms by CPI(M) goons not to file nomination in favour of any party other than the CPI(M), including partners of the Left Front, such as the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc (FB), etc. Refusal to follow the dictates of the party will result in banishment from the village, beating, torture, destruction of crops and household, rape and murder. Although this has taken place throughout West Bengal, the worst affected areas are the districts of West Midnapore and Arambagh subdivision of Hooghly, and certain areas in East Midnapore, Bankura, Bardhaman and Birbhum districts.

In these districts or areas there has been widespread terrorisation of the countryside, resulting in BJP and Trinamool Congress, as also the Congress, being unable to field candidates in a large number of seats. The process of terrorisation has already been described in my note sent to you on 18th April. The position is summarised below :

Total number of seats at the three levels 58,357

Nominations filed by Trinamool Congress (TMC) till last day 26,436

Nominations filed by BJP till last day 10,293

Nominations of Trinamool Congress after withdrawal 25,552

Nominations of BJP after withdrawal 8,962

Total of Nominations by Trinamool Congress and BJP 34,514

Number of seats in which there will be no contest 6,027

Number of seats in which there will be no TMC or BJP candidate 23,843

It would be seen from the above that as many as in 17,816 seats where there will be contest between CPI(M) and other candidates, but there will be no Trinamool Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party candidate. The question may arise as to why Trinamool Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party did not file any candidates in these seats. The truth of the matter is that on 16th April 2003, that is the last day of filing of nominations, there were some 60,000 nominations filed. The State Election Commissioner's infrastructure simply would not permit so many nominations to be filed, let alone processed, on a single day. What had happened is that on this day as well as subsequent days a large number of CPI(M) cadres filed nomination as dummy candidates, all of which were shown to have been filed on 16th April 2003. By this trickery the CPI(M) has managed to show the number of one-candidate seats to be merely 6,027 instead of 23,843 mentioned above.

Two other features of the terrorisation process must be mentioned. The first is the incidence of gang-rapes and other rapes which appear to have a political implication. There have been two such cases of gang-rapes, one in Dhantola in Nadia district, and the other in Goaltor, in West Midnapore district, in the midst of a terror stricken area. The latter involves minor girls aged between 11-15, one of them being from a Scheduled Tribe. Both have been investigated by the National Commission for Women. In both cases there has been found a tendency among the police to initially deny the crime and delay the medical examination of the victims. In both cases CPI(M) local leaders have been named as the perpetrators, of which their involvement has been admitted by the CPI(M) in the Dhantola case. In a third case at Ghoksadanga, in Cooch Behar district, a CPI(M) leader had raped a woman of her own party. Practically all the perpetrators belong to the minority community.

In addition to these rapes, this time there have been cases of attacks on high-profile persons such as Central and State Ministers. The attack on Shri Tapan Sikdar at Kenia-Khamarpara is known to you. Two ministers of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Biswanath Chowdhury and Amar Chowdhury have been attacked by CPI(M) activists, the latter twice in a matter of a few days. In all these cases the police have simply stood by helplessly.

The largest number of cases of violence on the polling day of 11th May have been reported from the Muslim-majority district of Murshidabad, followed by certain areas of North and South 24-Parganas. The Ananda Bazar Patrika has reported eight dead from this district alone, of whom seven are Muslims and one unidentified. Of these, six belong to the Congress and two to the CPI(M). The Congress in this district is led by Shri Adhir Chowdhury, MP, who functions like a warlord practically independent of any higher control. He has named the CPI(M) Minister Shri Anisur Rahman for having personally supervised rigging operations in Domkal in this district. A similar complaint had been made against Shri Rezzak Ali Molla in respect of rigging operations in Canning, in the district of South 24-Parganas. The CPI(M) had mounted an armed operation at Madanpur in the district of North 24-Parganas and tried to kill Lutfar Rahman, the local Gram Panchayat candidate. When they could not find him they killed his father Haji Anwar Ali (75).

The district of North Dinajpur in North Bengal had witnessed a bloodbath very recently. About a week before the election the CPI(M) mounted a massive attack in Chopra in the district of North Dinajpur to displace the Congress from that area. The police just stood by, watching village after village emptied of Congress supporters and their families. However in Dangibasti village, four old men, all above sixty and all Muslims, could not escape in time and were slaughtered by the CPI(M).

In a large number of cases the violence had affected the polling personnel or had caused them to run away. In Kumro, under Habra-I the Presiding Officer and eight Home Guards were mercilessly beaten up by CPI(M) goons. In Andharmanik, under Bishnupur-I Block of South 24-Parganas, two Presiding Officers had run away when bomb-throwing had started near their booths. No polling could be held on that day in their booths. Similarly in Koipul, North 24-Pargansd profuse bomb throwing had resulted in injury to polling and presiding officers

There are no reports of deaths of BJP wokers. However workers of the BJP have been seriously injured as a result of CPI(M) attack in Kayamulka Dignagar, Nadia; Ramkrishnapalli, Baruipur South 24-Parganas; Dakshin Chandipur, Bhutnir Char, Manik Chowk-II, Malda; Prithiba, Habra-I, North 24Parganas; Athpur, Jangipara, Hooghly; Bhagwatipur, Chanditala, Chinchura, Hooghly.

By far the most common kind of electoral malpractice commited by the CPI(M) encompasses booth-capturing, booth-jamming, snatching of ballot papers and breach of secrecy. Such incidents are too numerous to mention. The Dailies of Kolkata are full of their locations and descriptions. Each one of the cases that have come to the notice of the state BJP has been reported to the State Election Commissioner.

The role played by the State Election Commissioner Shri Ajoy Sinha, a retired IAS officer, has come in for trenchant criticism by all political parties of the opposition and by the Press. Shri Sinha's record during service is questionable. It is gathered from very reliable sources that he was under very active investigation by State Vigilance Commission but all these cases have been mysteriously hushed up. The cases reportedly involved womanising and excessive consumption of alcohol. During the pre-election period he had been completely impervious to the pleas of the opposition parties. He has not once budged out of his office in spite of continuous complaints regarding prevention of filing of nominations and has blindly accepted the reports received from the District Magistrates without cross-questioning them even once. Even after the report of as many as 20 deaths he has blandly stated that the election has been peaceful. It is also reported that the ballot papers have been found to have unprecedentedly large number of mistakes. Pranab Mukherjee of the Congress has called him a pervert while Mamata Banerjee has called him mentally unbalanced and not fit to run an election process.

In reacting to the allegation of the opposition parties the CPI(M) leaders seem to have consciously decided to speak in different voices. Anil Biswas, the Secretary of West Bengal Unit of the CPI(M), has steadfastly maintained that the complaints are false and it is the CPI(M) workers who are being victimised. Only in two cases ¾ in the Dhantala gang rape case and the attack on Tapan Sikdar ¾ has he admitted complicity of the CPI(M). Biman Bose, a Politburo member of the CPI(M), issued a pious directive to his party workers to keep silent if even provoked by the BJP or Trinamool. The third member of the ruling triumvirate, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya has decided to play the good boy. On the one hand, he has been asking his own party cadres to behave themselves ; on the other hand, he has been trying to assure Advaniji that everything is peaceful in West Bengal, and he has been trying to conduct the elections by the book. In truth, all three seem to have conspired to run the elections this way, and to win them at any cost.

CONCLUSION

The CPI(M) have been carrying on with 'Scientific Rigging' of the polls since 1982. Why, then, did they have to resort to such violence this time? The answer must lie in their dwindling support in the countryside as a result of their growing corruption, despotism and the anti-incumbency factor. Added to this the firm alliance that the Trinamool and the BJP formed this time in spite of their machinations put fear in their hearts. Their vote shares in the Panchayat elections had been reducing since 1988. Any further reduction and the consolidation of the Trinamool-BJP alliance would have caused a landslide in their support base. They, therefore chose the path of open violence.

In the face of this violence, where the Police and the administration in unashamedly made use of, a party like the BJP stands very little chance of electoral success. Brought up on traditions of equity and fair play, we shall always be tempted to believe the stuff that the likes of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya would like us to believe, namely that he is trying very hard to ensure fair elections. The result will be that every time we will fall victims to the CPI(M)'s games, but every time we will force ourselves to the conclusion that next time these things will be taken care of. We need to rid ourselves of this illusion. An avowedly Stalinist Party like the CPI(M) will never give up power so long as it can help it.

The CPI(M)'s conduct has been inexorably pushing West Bengal towards more and more violence. Murshidabad district, where the armed, police-backed might of the CPI(M) is matched by the equal might of Congress warlord Adhir Chowdhury, had its fill of this violence. Violence is the inevitable fallout when the grievances of the people cannot find a natural redressal through the ballot box. The ultimate outcome of this will be a Civil War, however horrible that may sound.

If such eventualities are to be avoided then it is necessary to give a serious thought to the state. It must be remembered that West Bengal is a border state through which Bangladeshi infiltration and ISI penetration is funnelled. It is also the umbilical cord of the entire North-East. For these reasons it should not be given up as a gone case. I therefore suggest a serious Chintan Baithak on the situation in the state.

With regards

Sincerely
(Tathagata Roy)