Panchayat Poll Violence Continues in West Bengal, Claims Yet Another Life

As the ruling Trinamool Congress is set to bag a majority of seats in the three-tier panchayat elections in West Bengal, the violence against the opposition parties continues unabated. The ongoing bloodshed claimed the life of one more person on 16 May.

The presiding officer of a polling booth for the panchayat poll in North Dinajpur district, who had been been missing since the evening of 14 May, was found dead with his body cut into three pieces. The body was found near the railway tracks in Raiganj, 24 km away from the polling booth where he was deployed.

The deceased, Raj Kumar Roy, was a school teacher. He went missing as soon as he had left his booth at Sonapur Primary School in Itahar.

Following the brutal murder of Roy, a section of government employees, including a majority of school teachers, demonstrated in protest against the violence that has marred these panchayat elections. More than a thousand employees, who were scheduled to join counting duty on 17 May, boycotted the training and took to the streets to protest. The agitating employees alleged that Roy had been abducted and murdered. The protesters also said there was “administrative inaction” and failure to protect the polling staff.

The sub-divisional officer went to pacify the protesters, but they were not ready to step back from their demonstration. Late on 16 May evening, the district administration barred the protesting teachers from the counting duty. Though the colleagues of the deceased were certain that Roy had been abducted by unknown persons, the state officials tried to maintain that it was a suicide or an accident.

“We suspect that the criminals threw his body on the railway tracks after killing him. However, the administrative officials are trying to prove it as an accident. We demand the arrest of all the criminals who killed Mr Roy,” said Bipul Moitra, a presiding officer for the polls and the headmaster of a high school, as quoted in a news report.

“During polling on 14 May, miscreants went on a rampage and opened fire and detonated bombs at so many polling stations as there was no security at all. They snatched ballot boxes and ballot papers after taking our polling workers at gunpoint. We will perform our duty, but we need proper security,” he added.

The election commission declined to comment on the death of the polling officer. So far, the commission had not been briefed on this matter by the district administration, a key official was quoted as saying on condition of anonymity.

In the spate of pre-poll and post-poll violence, a large number of candidates from opposition parties — primarily, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), but also the Congress and the BJP — have been threatened and brutally, even fatally, attacked for filing nominations against the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Following such incidents, a divisional bench of the Calcutta High Court on 8 May had ordered the election commission to treat nominations filed through electronic messaging as legitimate on an appeal by the CPI(M), since over 800 intending candidates had been prevented from filing nominations in the administrative offices. But the election commission — the body which is supposed to prevent the misuse of governmental power during elections and to ensure fair and equal chances to compete for elections — had moved to Supreme Court, challenging the ruling of the division bench of Calcutta High Court. And the Supreme Court, too, had set aside the order.

Though the division bench had ruled that e-nominations should have accepted under the Information Technology Act 2000, the commission defending its move said there was no such provision under the laws of West Bengal.

So far, more than two dozen people have lost their lives in the election-related violence.