Violence Mars West Bengal Panchayat Polls, Allegations of Booth Looting and Rigging Against TMC ‘Hooligans’

Kolkata: About 15 people, including two voters, three CPI(M) workers, five TMC workers, two Congress workers, and two BJP workers, have so far lost their lives in poll-related violence in West Bengal on the day of the panchayat polls in the state. More than dozens of political activists, including election officials, were reportedly beaten up by hooligans. The epicentre of the attacks was in Murshidabad district, where nearly five political activists lost their lives.

With this, the total number of deaths in the panchayat polls now stands at 33.

The voting began on Saturday at 7 o'clock for the 10th panchayat polls in the state. The election is being held for 73,887 seats, with a total of 5.76 crore voters. In the 22 zilla parishads, there are 928 seats where voting was conducted, along with 9,730 panchayat samiti seats and 63,229 gram panchayat seats.

Although the Kolkata High Court had ordered the state government to deploy central forces in the voting premises, state Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha has been accused of delaying the deployment at the voting booths. Despite claims of having 650 companies of central forces stationed in the state, they “were nowhere to be found at the voting booth premises”, according to local activists.

The ruling party was accused of “mass vote looting” by opposition party workers and a few locals. However, they said that unlike in 2018, in 2023, there was mass resistance to TMC hooliganism. Left activists claimed that in many places, they caught the TMC red-handed “rigging the polls” and as a result, proceeded to throw the ballot boxes out in the open. Stiff resistance to TMC’s “hooliganism” was reported in Domkol and Murshidabad. In Jangra, a woman reportedly came forward and stalled the “corrupt voting practices” at the local booth. Large-scale irregularities in the voting process were reported from many North Bengal districts as well.

The voters queued outside a school in the Birbhum district.

While resisting “TMC’s hooligans”, Rajibul Sheikh (24), a CPI(M) worker, lost his life on Friday at Ausgram in the Burdwan district. Large-scale resistance to vote looting was also witnessed in Birbhum district at Rampurhat subdivision and in Burdwan East District. In Memari and Raina blocks, TMC hooligans allegedly entered the booths around 10 am and “forcefully removed CPI(M) polling agents” within half an hour. CPI(M) activists said that the party’s resistance teams quickly gathered and expelled the TMC workers from the voting premises.

Similar incidents were reported from 30 booths in the East Burdwan district. In Diamond Harbour – TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s constituency – hooligans started voting last night, and by morning, the ballot boxes were “filled with false votes”, according to a few CPI(M) activists.

However, in Netra, Diamond Harbour, people resisted such an attempt with roadblocks in front of the polling station. The presiding officer reportedly acknowledged the malpractice that occurred since last night. In Raninagar 2 Block, it was alleged that TMC forces led by block president Shah Alam created chaos, “throwing bombs like cricket balls to prevent CPI(M) and Congress supporters from reaching the polling booths”.

State government employees, who said they felt unsafe due to these developments, have decided to organise a march to the Election Commission and criticised the State Election Commissioner for allegedly being “grossly incompetent”.