KOLKATA: Widespread allegations of vote rigging and violence in all nine Lok Sabha constituencies and one Assembly seat marked the seventh and last phase of elections in West Bengal on Saturday. All the seats which went to polls on Saturday were in south Bengal and had been won by the Trinamool Congress in the 2019 elections.
By the end of the day, almost 2,000 complaints had been lodged with the Election Commission. Polling for the nine Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, including Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata Dakshin, and Kolkata Uttar, began at 7 am.
Sandeshkhali, the epicentre of the protests against Trinamool atrocities for the past five months, was again in the news since late Friday night. BJP supporters, mostly women, alleged that men in police uniforms had been roaming around the island since Friday night and threatening voters not to step out to vote.
Women voters alleged that the police had lathicharged them and had also pelted them with stones to prevent them from voting. Six women were injured in the melee in which male police personnel were seen manhandling women protestors in Bermojur in Sandeshkhali, which comes under the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat. Women claimed that this was the first time in 10 years that they were able to go out and vote. They accused associates of the now-suspended Trinamool leader Sheikh Shahjahan, who is currently imprisoned, of intimidating their families. State police, however, claimed the unrest began after local BJP supporters assaulted civic volunteers.
The BJP’s Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, and BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya shared videos of the protests, accusing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of using party goons and state police to intimidate voters.
BJP contestants in all the seats voiced discontentment against the inert role played by Central forces. The 1,000-odd QRT (Quick Response Teams), which the poll panel had claimed would reach trouble spots within 10 minutes, were conspicuously absent.
In almost all seats, candidates and leaders from the BJP, Left-Congress combine and the ISF were blocked by slogan-shouting mobs of Trinamool Congress supporters while the security forces stood by as mute spectators.
Abhijit Das, alias Bobby, the BJP’s candidate from Diamond Harbour, who had yesterday voiced apprehensions about disturbances, was virtually confined in two spots in the constituency by aggressive Trinamool Congress supporters.
CPIM’s Dum Dum candidate, Sujan Chakraborty faced “go back” slogans in many places like Muragacha and South Dum Dum.
All non-Trinamool Congress candidates said that their agents had been driven away to facilitate voting by fake voters despite the presence of Central forces. “Central forces are bogus,” exclaimed Sajal Ghosh, the BJP candidate for the Baranagar Assembly byelection, after catching hold of a false voter. However, a posse of women Trinamool supporters whisked away the man in the presence of the Central forces. Viral videos showed Trinamool supporters ransacking the poll offices of the BJP in Baranagar.
Another hotspot was Bhangar, under the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, which saw bombs being thrown and mobs owing allegiance to the Trinamool Congress and the Indian Secular Front (ISF) repeatedly clashing with each other. Clashes were reported in the Satuliya area in Bhangar. The confrontation led to several injuries among ISF members caused by widespread use of country-made bombs. The vehicle of ISF candidate Nur Alam Khan was vandalised, allegedly by Trinamool supporters.
In Kultali, South 24-Parganas district, an angry mob forced its way into polling stations, seized an electronic voting machine and threw it into a nearby pond. This incident occurred after some polling agents were allegedly barred from entering the booths, prompting local residents to retaliate by seizing the EVM equipped with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and discarding it.
“Today morning at 6.40 am Reserve EVMs & papers of Sector Officer near Benimadhavpur FP school, at 129-Kultali AC of 19-Jaynagar (SC) PC has been looted by local mob and 1 CU, 1 BU , 2 VVPAT machines have been thrown inside a pond…FIR has been lodged by Sector Officer and necessary action has been initiated. Poll process in all six booths under the Sector is running uninterrupted. Fresh EVM and papers have been provided to the Sector Officer,” the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal said in a statement.
The polling was conducted with 1,020 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the State, 978 of which are on polling duty. A total of 1,960 quick response teams (QRTs) were deployed to address any tensions.