Bengal civic polls: Central forces arrive for duty, but who called them?

TNN | Apr 25, 2015, , KOLKATA: Thirty-one companies of BSF— some 2,700 personnel — were deployed on election duty on Friday, less than 24 hours before voting is to start in the municipal polls. The last-minute twist in the drama was all the more interesting because no one knew who had ordered the deployment — the chief minister was grumbling about it and the State Election Commission looked just as surprised as the administration. 

These BSF jawans haven't come from other states. They have been re-deployed from the existing force in Bengal and are expected to patrol the roads in five districts of North Bengal and two in south Bengal during voting on Saturday amid fears of a rerun of the violence seen during the KMC election last week. 

Interestingly, the Mamata Banerjee government did not requisition these central forces, neither did SEC.On the contrary, the CM said that the last-minute deployment was a burden on the state. "A letter landed at Nabanna around 11am on Friday about the availability of forces. We wrote to the Centre much earlier, now the force is coming just before the polls, for only a day. I don't know how to use them. We have to pay them a day's salary and have to feed them though our exchequer is dry," Mamata said, insisting that Kolkata Police did a "good job" in the KMC polls last week and that elections "had never been so peaceful". 

An SEC source attributed the deployment to Raj Bhavan, which took up the matter with the home ministry to try to prevent booth jamming, intimidation and violence during voting to 91 municipalities. Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had ticked of state election commissioner S R Upadhyay on Thursday. While Raj Bhavan did its bit, there are also indications of a groundswell of opinion against efforts to coerce voters. Unlike the KMC polls, which turned out to be one-sided match, people have come out in large numbers at Sonamukhi (Bankura), Karbala (South 24-Parganas) and in Siliguri to protest against criminals being roped in to enforce the ruling party's writ. Trinamool's terror tactics has backfired in parts of North 24-Parganas where it is facing stiff resistance from a host of Trinamool rebels contesting as independents. 

Trinamool bike gangs allegedly attacked independent candidates and CPM supporters in Shyamnagar, Kamarhati and Bhatpara in North 24-Parganas and Santipur in Nadia on Friday. Congress supporters, BJP workers and independents came under attack in Purulia and Jalpaiguri. The statewide violence has put SEC on test. Embarrassed by reports that some Kolkata booths registered a higher polling percentage than the number of voters and he still did not order a repoll, Upadhyay is trying to make amends in the final round. He has made municipal returning officers more accountable by ordering them to list the booths where polling percentage is higher or lower by 15% than the last election, where more than 10 tender votes are cast, and booths that have no polling agents. SEC plans to depute micro-observers in all sensitive and highly-sensitive booths, where videography is not possible. 

 Upadhyay even gathered courage to showcause the chief minister for promising free treatment to cancer and cardiac patients in a Facebook post less than 12 hours before the KMC elections. When asked about the CM's promise on Thursday of building smart cities, Upadhyay said: "I haven't heard of it as yet. Let me find out what she has said. I will take steps accordingly." 

The Opposition says it has no faith in SEC. Taking cue from CPM, state BJP president Rahul Sinha appealed to all political parties to unite against the "vote loot" by Trinamool. CPM's Sujan Chakrabarty and Congress leader Abdul Mannan didn't pay heed to Sinha, but agreed on the need to combat efforts to rig the polls.