Left, Congress say Trinamool supporters intimidated voters, candidates and polling agents
Stray incidents of violence were reported during the elections to six civic bodies in West Bengal that were held on Sunday, with both the Left and the Congress alleging that supporters of the Trinamool Congress intimidated not only candidates and polling agents of the other parties, but also voters in the course of the day.
The average voter turnout was 85. It was the highest at Cooper's Camp in Nadia district, at 93.28 per cent. The lowest turnout of 78 per cent was recorded in Durgapur, the town where there were allegations of violence.
The Left Front alleged that voting in several wards in Durgapur was successfully “rigged.” Biman Bose, chairman of the State Left Front Committee, told journalists that the Left would demand a re-poll in 29 wards.
However Tapas Roy, secretary of the West Bengal State Election Commission, said the Commission had not received any written requests for re-polling so far.
“After the 2011 Assembly polls, we had expected that a similar atmosphere of free and fair elections would be created. After the Assembly polls, there were no allegations levelled against any political party, the administration or the police. But that is not the case after these polls,” said Pradip Bhattacharya, president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee.
State BJP secretary alleged that poll observers, returning officers and the district administration did not act upon complaints.
Charges dismissed
Senior Trinamool Congress leaders dismissed all the allegations as “lies” and “canards” spread by the other parties.
“The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its senior leaders, who were joined in by those of the Congress, have been spreading canards against us. The BJP also joined in. But today's [Sunday] peaceful elections have proven that they were baseless,” said Suvendu Adhikari, Trinamool Congress MP from Tamluk in Purba Medinipur district.
The two municipalities in the district that went to the polls – Haldia and Paskura – were also witness to some incidents of violence.
“In every ward in Haldia, Trinamool supporters riding motorcycles carried out a campaign of driving fear into the minds of the voters,” claimed Mr. Bose.
Keywords: West Bengal civic polls
Why cant elections happen in India as a matter of fact and the results be acccepted as a matter of fact?
Perhaps it serves all political parties in turn not to implement procedures and measures to give a secure environment (CCTV in the polling booth with direct online broadcast or even a webcast is not a space age technology to preserve evidence of misdemeanour at polling stations so that complainsts could be acted upon with real time evidence).
Whether it is the ECI or the SEC they still take no ownership for data quality /accuracy in gathering and maintaining sanctity of primary data of the voters - example: voters list containing ficticious data, errors of omission and transposition, errors of data entry (your neighbour becomes your father in the database of registers voters and even the dead are resurrected!!!) and no serious and simple procedures to address issues real time.
A long way to go before India can compare their democratic institutions with UK or any in the west.
The TMC is only following the same pattern of the LF in previous
elections. Elections to local bodies are organised by the state election
commission which is under the thumb of the state government and not
under the aegis of the Election Commission of India. It becomes very
easy to rig elections in such circumstances in Bengal.
The last elections showed that rowdyism can be controlled if the election commission so desires.Our guess is The election commission has been asked to look the other way.The Commission must own its guilt.The Police is known to be act as servants of the ruling party. 'cops stood and watched' while a woman was being harassed.The Police officers and constables must be brought to book. Perhaps the practice of holding elections on a holiday has to be done away with.In UK electins used to be held on working days.
I am no supporter of the TMC.Having said that,I would like to comment that after every election,the litany of every opposition party against the incumbent outfit is that the polls are rigged, that the voters owing allegiance to the opposition were intimidated and that there has been heavy bogus voting in addition to names of voters not finding any place in the electoral rolls.It is time that the media stops printing these allegations unless there are valid reasons and grounds for publishing the news item.
Please Email the Editor