West Bengal election 2021 has shown its fair share of violence between the party-workers of TMC and BJP. But, on April 10, it spilled between the people who came to vote and the central forces.
The state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee spoke at a press conference in Siliguri today. At the conference, Ms. Banerjee asserted that the killing of the villagers by the central forces was nothing but genocide. She added, “They fired by targeting chest. If their intention was to disperse mob, they may fire on leg, but they targeted chest. They are CISF. They have no experience to control mob.”
Union home minister, Amit Shah, who is attending rallies across West Bengal on Sunday stated, “Mamata’s advice to gherao central forces instigated people to attack CISF personnel.” He is scheduled to attend rallies & roadshow in Basirhat Dakshin & Panihati.
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Belligerence of Mamata Banerjee hurling genocide comment towards centre is not an ungrounded behaviour. The West Bengal CM may be highly vocal & belligerent right now, as the election season is on, but there is something worth underscoring with regards to the shootout in Sitalkuchi. The firing at the people in the polling station at Sitalkuchi should be taken as a foretelling of what can be expected in the state if the saffron camp manages to breach the victory-mark. The CISF claimed that the crowds surrounded them which forced them to open fire. But, the ground reality does not account for it, even after taking into calculation the disparate angles. The facts simply do not corroborate it.
People from various places, like Burdwan, Bandel, Hooghly, Alipurduar, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Maldah, Birbhum, Kolkata, and its suburban areas have disclosed to the Media outlet that goons, hired by BJP are effectively carrying out the campaigning and flag-marches for the BJP leaders. (A common condition of all the sources for disclosing their observations is anonymity.) Apart from that, it has also been observed that BJP has been hiring the former workers from Left-front, and TMC in the state in places where the party hopes to make some gains in the assembly election. It has been a case in Nandigram, the main battleground between BJP &TMC, where BJP has put people (from the once politically relevant Harmad bahini) with criminal records and with known cases of atrocities on farmers, on its payroll.
Hiring of goons by political parties is not new in Indian political scenario, especially in the make-or-break condition in the West Bengal election. But, there is something unique in the firing carried out by the central forces, which hints at intentional targeting of the minority groups.
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The region of Sitalkuchi is a place with a majority population of Muslims, which is an electoral trouble for BJP, to put it in sober terms. In the polling station in Sitalkuchi with Muslim-majority, there were reports of a boy Mrinal/Minal Haque being shot at by the central forces. The boy hailed from the Jorpatki village in the region. That was followed by the local people assembling around the polling stations in protest of the firing. Then four more people were shot at. They were Hamidul Milan (31), Monirujjaman Mian (28), Samiul Haq (18) and Noor Alam Mian (20). This is not a normal pattern for the central forces when responding to political violence in West Bengal. Disturbances in other regions with Hindu majority never led to firing by the security forces. The firings have led to the cancellation of the election in the region and a highly possible and deliberate implanting of fear in the mind of voters from the Minority community.
Confusion over the trigger of the shootout
Regarding the trigger-moment of the shootout, central security forces and the villagers have completely different scenarios to tell. The central forces stated that near polling booth number 126, a boy fell unconscious on the ground and started frothing at the mouth, which triggered the chaos. Villagers alleged that the boy was killed by the central forces when they were escorting 50-60 men (BJP voters) led by some BJP men towards the polling booth. On top of it, there was also confusion about another incident where a first-time voter was shot dead by two miscreants riding a bike near polling booth number 285. The shootout which killed the four people named earlier had taken place near polling booth number 126 and is unrelated to the incident near polling booth number 285.
It remains clear whatever the trigger was, the central forces had indeed shot down four people from a minority community.
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In 2019, the doubts of the opposition parties were bolstered by a report that stated that 19 lakh polling machines- EVMs are missing. The report came in response to PILs and RTI applications asking for information on the “vulnerability” and “unreliability” of EVMs.
This raises questions about whether central forces are under influence from the central government led by BJP to use a hammering attitude towards the minority voters to impact voting. That leads to further doubts over the claims by the security forces and the Election Commission of India of being impartial. It should be noted that the violence by the central forces in Sitalkuchi has been used by the ECI to draw 71 more companies of central forces into the state.
All these along with the report suggesting the huge number (19 lakh) of EVMs missing, lend a strong credence to the concerns raised by Mamata Banerjee regarding the Election Commission and the central forces being in cahoots with BJP to manipulate the election in Bengal.
Election in West Bengal is scheduled to be held in 8 phases from March 27 to April, 29, with four phases remaining, and the vote counting will take place on May, 02.
