Tag: Bengal elections

  • EC extends polling time by 30 minutes for first phase of Bengal elections

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Election Commission (EC) has extended polling time by 30 minutes for the first phase of West Bengal assembly elections, and voters will now be able to exercise their franchise from 7 am to 6.30 pm, a notification issued by the poll panel on Tuesday said.

    The decision was taken in view of the COVID-19 restrictions, an election official here said.

    “Keeping in mind the ongoing COVID-19 situation, the commission has decided to extend polling time by 30 minutes. It will now be held from 7 am to 6.30 pm. The notification for the first phase of polls in West Bengal was issued this noon,” he said.

    The first phase of elections is scheduled to be held on March 27 in 30 assembly constituencies.

  • With ISF’s entry into poll fray, identity politics gain ground in Bengal

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: With the stage set for a high- octane assembly election in West Bengal, key stakeholders said the state will witness a communally charged electoral battle with fairly large doses of identity politics for the first time since Independence.

    In West Bengal, where the electoral discourse hitherto steered clear of divisive religious propaganda, the BJP and the ruling TMC are locked in a fierce polarising debate, accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.

    Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is facing the toughest election in her long political career, has set off an “insider-outsider” debate, calling the BJP a party from Gujarat and stoking “Bengali pride”.

    The entry of the newly formed Indian Secular Front (ISF) led by Abbas Siddiqui, who became the first religious leader in West Bengal to take the political plunge, has upturned several political equations and added fuel to the campaign of religious identity-based politics in the state.

    “This time, assembly elections will be different from the ones we have witnessed since independence. The BJP has long been trying to create divisions among the communities. But we will fight against it and work to unite people,” senior TMC leader and MP Sougata Roy said.

    The BJP leadership, too, agreed that communal polarisation was on the rise in the state, but blamed appeasement politics by the TMC for it.

    “For us the election plank happens to be ‘development for all’. That said, appeasement politics and injustice towards the state’s majority community by the TMC government has indeed led to communal polarisation in Bengal,” BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said.

    Echoing him, BJP leader Tathagata Roy said Partition scars and the upswing of Muslim identity politics in Bengal have deepened the communal fault lines.

    The opposition Congress, on its part, trained guns on both the TMC and the BJP for fomenting divisive politics — a practice almost alien to the state’s political culture.

    CPI(M) politburo member Mohammed Salim, however, stressed that the narrative wouldn’t yield any result as the masses are “fed up with the misrule” of the TMC and the BJP at the state and the Centre respectively.

    “Had communal narrative been at play in the past (during CPI-M rule), people would have seen the saffron camp and other fundamentalist forces gaining ground back then. But that was not the case. True, this time parties are playing the communal card, but issues concerning common people such as fuel price hike, corruption and unemployment will negate its influence to a large extent,” he said.

    Elections in Bengal, poised to be a stiff contest between the TMC and the BJP, will be held in eight phases, beginning with polling for 30 seats on March 27.

    Votes will be counted on May 2.

    Since Independence, polls in the state, which boasts of being the cradle of the Indian renaissance, have always been fought along ideological lines, with matters related to government policies, unemployment and food security taking centre stage.

    Sources in the BJP claimed that the TMC government’s failure to control communal riots over the last six years has angered not just a section of the minorities, but also those belonging to the majority community.

    According to the data released by the Union home ministry in 2018, communal violence increased sharply since 2015 in West Bengal.

    The state had recorded 27 incidents of communal violence in 2015 which went up to 58 in 2017.

    Although opposition parties pinned the blame on the TMC for this surge in religious aggression and intolerance in the state, which has 30 per cent Muslim electorate, a quick look at Bengal’s socio-political history will reflect how communalism has always had an impact on its political culture, beginning with the trauma of Partition.

    Both the Hindu right and fringe Muslim outfits had wielded considerable influence in violence-hit West Bengal in the aftermath of Partition, before waning considerably over the years.

    During the first assembly polls in 1952, the Hindu Mahasabha, along with Bharatiya Jana Sangh, had won 13 seats and garnered around eight per cent of the total votes.

    Later, Jana Sangh’s influence ebbed, as it ended up with only one seat in 1967 and 1971 elections.

    Similarly, Muslim outfits such as the Progressive Muslim League (PML) and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) had established its presence in some pockets, with the PML winning three seats in 1969 assembly polls, and IUML bagging a single seat during 1972 and 1977 elections.

    “Although parties like the IUML, PML and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh managed to bag a few seats till the seventies, poll campaigns did not bank on communal narrative. Development issues and anti-state or anti-Centre plank always took precedence,” veteran Congress leader Abdul Mannan Said.

    During the early sixties, however, the rise of the Left parties, who fought for the rights of refugees from Bangladesh, ended the consolidation of right wing forces in the state.

    Noted Historian Sugata Bose contended that refugees from Bangladesh felt cheated both by the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha when the country endured Partition, and they took solace in the Left’s fold.

    “Refugees from Bangladesh and Bengali Muslims were more aligned to the Left. Therefore, the communal rhetoric never gained momentum in Bengal. The state never witnessed such divisive politics as is the practice now,” Bose, Gardiner Professor of oceanic history at Harvard University, told PTI.

    Poll observers believe that the Left had been able to maintain a balance between communities, which the TMC could not do.

    “Bengal always had the ingredients fit for polarising its society. Not just the state’s high minority population, the influx of refugees from Bangladesh — both during 1947 Partition and 1971 Liberation war – have also been a major factor,” political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said.

    The politically influential Matuas and Namashudras, who fled Bangladesh due to religious persecution, voted for the Left for decades, before shifting lock stock and barrel to the BJP during the last Lok Sabha polls, following the promise of citizenship under the newly amended citizenship law.

    The TMC feels the ISF’s entry into Bengal’s poll arena will further deepen the divide and help the BJP by eating into the ruling party’s Muslim vote base.

    “The ISF may not win seats but will widen the communal divide further. It could cause harm to the TMC by cutting into our Muslim votes and further pushing the Hindus towards the BJP,” a senior leader of the Mamata Banerjee camp said.

    BJP leader Tathagatha Roy said the assertion of Muslim identity in Bengal politics, a new concept, will consolidate Hindu votes.

    Siddiqui, however, said he has entered politics to fight for the rights of the minorities and backward communities, a cause which the mainstream political parties have neglected so far.

    The BJP, apart from the development plank, has been harping on the issue of illegal immigration and the promise of citizenship to refugees, whereas the TMC has been largely focusing on the insider-outsider debate to take on the saffron camp.

  • Bengal grand alliance on choppy waters? ISF cautions Congress over seat sharing

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA:  A day after Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said his party was yet to forge an alliance with the newly formed Indian Secular Front (ISF) in West Bengal, ISF founder Abbas Siddiqui on Sunday made it clear that his party would not join hands with the grand old party if his demands are not met ahead of the Assembly polls.

    Proclaiming support for the Left Front (LF) and its allies in the state, Siddiqui, however, said Bengal will get the better of the BJP and “its B-team Mamata Banerjee” in the election.

    The ISF has sealed a seat-sharing agreement with the Left Front for the Assembly election, while talks with Congress are underway.

    Addressing a mega joint rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, Siddiqui, a Muslim cleric who launched the ISF last month, announced that his supporters will vote for the candidates of the CPI(M) and its partners and cautioned the Congress over the ongoing seat-sharing deal, asking it to arrive at a decision soon.

    “Many are thinking that I am supporting the LF and not talking about the Congress. Let me clear that the ISF has demanded what it deserves. I am here to secure my stake not to satisfy anyone. I am here (in politics) to be a partner, not for any kind of appeasement. I am here to get my rightful claims,” he said.

    “I didn’t speak about the Congress. I am here (in politics) to be a partner, not for any appeasement. I am here to get my rightful claims,” Siddiqui said with state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury present on the dais.

    So far, the Left Front has agreed on giving 91 seats to Congress and 30 seats to the ISF. However, the ISF is insisting on 3-4 more seats, including the high-profile constituency of Nandigram.

    The Congress refused to give two of the seats demanded by Siddiqui as the party has its sitting MLAs there.

    At the rally, ISF supporters gave Siddiqui a rousing welcome as he appeared on the stage when Chowdhury was in the middle of his speech.

    The Congress leader then sought to cut it short. He, however, continued the address after Left leaders such as Biman Bose and Md Salim persuaded him.

    The LF called for “knocking out the TMC and BJP and stressed the need for a third alternative to provide a “Janhit Sarkar” (people’s welfare government) to ensure employment generation.

    “We have heard from our sources that Sonia Gandhi wants this grand alliance. But a Congress leader from Bengal is creating problems. We will wait for a few more days and then take a call. We can’t wait till eternity,” he said on the sidelines of the rally.

    Reacting to the comments, Chowdhury said the Congress wouldn’t take decisions based on threats and intimidation by “some Siddiqui”.

    “We can’t decide based on what some Siddiqui is saying. We are having a formal alliance with the Left. Let us first get a clear picture of the number of seats we are getting from the Left, then, we can share it with someone else. We deputed Abdul Mannan to talk to the ISF and look into their demands. Let’s see,” he told reporters at the state Congress office.

    The discomfort on the dais at the rally was visible with Chowdhury and Siddiqui not speaking to each other.

    Siddiqui got onto the stage when Chowdhury was addressing the rally.

    Seeing him on the dais, ISF supporters burst into cheer, disrupting the Congress leader’s speech who then sought to cut it short.

    However, Chowdhury continued the address after Left leaders such as Biman Bose and Md Salim persuaded him.

    “Nothing of that sort. I merely told them (Salim and Bose) if I would temporarily stop speaking and resume later on,” the Chowdhury later clarified.

    The CPI(M) said that it was working with the alliance partners to iron out the differences.

    “Left would act as the cement of this alliance and the issues will be sorted out,” Salim said.

    According to sources, the ISF has demanded a few seats in once Congress bastion Malda and Chowdhury’s stronghold Murshidabad that the Congress won in the 2016 assembly polls.

    Siddiqui joining the Left-Congress alliance has given it an edge in the West Bengal polls, mostly seen as a bipolar contest between the Trinamool Congress and BJP.

    Siddiqui, a pirzada at Furfura Sharif — one of the holiest shrines among Bengali Muslims, created a flutter by meeting AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi ahead of the elections but ditched him for the Left-Congress.

    West Bengal has a 30 per cent Muslim population a deciding factor in around 100-110 seats.

    In case of a close contest, the Left-Congress-ISF alliance will become a deciding factor.

    Elections for the West Bengal assembly will be held in eight phases, up from seven last time, beginning with polling for 30 seats on March 27.

    Bihar-based LJP to contest in Bengal, Assam polls

    The Lok Janshakti Party has announced that it will try its electoral luck in the Bengal and Assam Assembly elections to take on the JDU and other parties.

    The decision was taken at a meeting between LJP chief Chirag Paswan and his party leaders at Patna. 

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • ‘People of Bengal will teach Mamata a lesson’: Left, Congress, ISF thunder at Kolkata rally

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Indian Secular Front (ISF), led by Abbas Siddiqui, on Sunday vowed to defeat the TMC and BJP in the upcoming assembly elections, asserting that people of the state would teach Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee “a lesson for her arrogance”.

    Proclaiming support for the Left Front and its allies in the state, Siddiqui said Bengal will get the better of the BJP and “its B-team Mamata Banerjee” in the polls.

    “Mamata and her TMC has destroyed democracy and unleashed anarchy. They will pay for it in the elections,” Siddiqui said, addressing a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds here.

    The ISF has sealed a seat-sharing agreement with the Left Front for the assembly elections, while talks with Congress are underway.

    Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury reiterated that the grand alliance of the Left- Congress and other secular forces will defeat both the TMC and the BJP in the West Bengal assembly elections.

     Chowdhury said the massive gathering proves that the upcoming elections will not be a two-cornered contest. He said the BJP and the ruling TMC desire that apart from these two parties, there should not exist any other political force in the state, which come in their path.

    “In future, there will not be any BJP or TMC, only the grand alliance will remain,” he asserted.

    The Election Commission of India had on Friday announced eight-phase polls in West Bengal, which will commence on March 27 and conclude on April 29.

  • Will Tejashwi Yadav make any impact in Assam and Bengal?

    By Express News Service
    PATNA: Will the RJD’s plans to enter the electoral fray in West Bengal and Assam inflict any damages on its target, the BJP? This has become a million-dollar political question being asked by Bihar’s political observers and analysts.

    Some analysts say RJD’s influence could be felt in some pockets where Hindi-speaking voters are permanently settled in Assam and Bengal.

    As per rough estimation, compared to Bengal, its neighbour Assam has a larger population of Hindi-speaking voters who had migrated from Bihar.

    ALSO READ | RJD to contest Assam polls aiming Hindi-speaking voters: Tejashwi Yadav

    “Around, two per cent of voters are Hindi-speaking in Assam, who owe lineages from Bihar and a majority of them belong to Yadav community.

    In some seats, they may be able to swing the results,” said Arun Kumar Pandey, a seasoned political analyst-cum- senior journalist in Patna. He added that the RJD may try to highlight the unemployment issue during thr BJP rule during the campaign.

  • Mamata Banerjee’s COVID jab request ahead of polls dubbed ‘smart move’, could paint BJP in a corner

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA:  West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his help to procure Covid-19 vaccines so that everyone can be inoculated free of cost before the assembly elections, a ‘smart’ move that political analysts say is aimed at cornering the BJP ahead of assembly polls.  

    “The Centre’s decision to make vaccines available at some private hospitals gives a clear hint that it would not be able to give free vaccines to all. The CM wants to put pressure on the BJP government at the Centre on this issue ahead of the polls,’’ said an official at the state secretariat. According to TMC sources, the Centre’s inability to give Bengal adequate volume of vaccines would become the ruling party’s weapon to target the BJP. 

    ALSO READ | Bengal assembly elections: Poll strategists of BJP camp shift base to Kolkata

    “In a video conference just before vaccination started, the CM had made it clear to the PM that the state wanted to buy vaccines and give them for free to the common people. Initially, the BJP was trying to cash in on vaccination claiming the Centre has fast-tracked the process to keep people safe from the virus. Now the CM’s request is bound to put the Modi government in a quandary because their inability to provide vaccines in adequate numbers will be exploited by the TMC ahead of the elections, which can damage the BJP,” said a TMC leader.

    Mamata in her letter said that the people will be forced to go to the polling stations without any vaccination coverage if free of cost immunisation is not done ahead of elections. So far, about 2 lakh health workers and doctors have been administered jabs in the state. Another 2 lakh frontline workers, including police personnel, are being given vaccines in the second phase.

  • Bengal polls: Special police observer Vivek Dubey to reach state on Sunday

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Retired IPS officer Vivek Dubey, who was appointed as a special police observer by the Election Commission of India for the West Bengal assembly polls, will reach the state on Sunday, an official said.

    Dubey, a 1981-batch officer from Andhra Pradesh, was entrusted with the same responsibly in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

    “He will come to West Bengal tomorrow and take stock of the situation. He will hold meetings with senior police officers,” the official said on Saturday.

    At least 18 companies of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) reached West Bengal on Saturday as part of the ongoing deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the state for the assembly polls.

    He said 10 companies of the SSB reached the state from Assam and eight from Bihar.

    Three companies each have been deployed in Kolkata, Barasat, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and two each in Bongaon, Basirhat and Sundarbans, the official said.

    Overall 143 companies of CAPF have come to the state so far, he added.

  • Congress looking for much-needed wins in upcoming assembly polls with the help of allies

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: After a series of reverses, the Congress is now going on an overdrive to regain power in Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry with the help of its allies.

    Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has already started a high-pitched campaign in the southern states and has also toured Assam, though the party is yet to finalise seat-sharing with allies.

    In Tamil Nadu, it is still working with its major partner DMK on a seat-sharing arrangement.

    The party is optimistic about its chances in the state as also in Kerala as power switches side there every five years.

    The Congress has again joined hands with AIUDF in Assam to wrest back power from the BJP, though it does not have a stalwart like former chief minister Tarun Gogoi who passed away in November last year.

    In West Bengal, the Congress and Left parties are yet to have a formal agreement with the Indian Secular Front, a move intended to help win back some of the minority voters who are being wooed by the AIMIM as well the ruling TMC in the fight against a buoyed BJP.

    With the Congress now left in power only in the states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh of its own and in Maharashtra and Jharkhand along with its allies, the grand old party faces the challenge of performing well at the hustings in these polls or run the risk losing its relevance as the principal opposition party.

    The fall of its governments in Karnataka in 2019, Madhya Pradesh in 2020 and recently in Puducherry as well as the electoral reverses in Bihar and Delhi have led to growing internal discord in the Congress, especially in the absence of a full-time party chief, and is putting it at a disadvantage in the seat-sharing negotiations with allies, according to observers.

    Though the civic poll results in Punjab were encouraging, the defeat in the Gujarat civic polls has come as a dampener.

    Assembly polls in five states of Kerala, Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will begin from March 27.

    The group of 23 dissenters within the Congress also went public against the party on Saturday saying it has “weakened” and there is an urgent need to strengthen it.

    Party leaders feel that for the grand old party, winning these elections is very crucial as it would give it the much-needed confidence to emerge as a stronger opposition force against the Narendra Modi-led BJP.

    It will also boost the Congress’ prospects as it enters the next phase of electoral battles in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh in 2022.

  • ‘My spine is not for sale’, says Abhishek at Suvendu Adhikari’s backyard

    By PTI
    GHATAL: Senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday held a roadshow at Ghatal in Purba Medinipur district, considered a stronghold of turncoat Suvendu Adhikari, and said that his spine is not for sale like “some other people”.

    Adhikari, once considered a close aide of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, joined the BJP in December last year.

    Without naming Adhikari, Abhishek Banerjee described him as a betrayer who “brought disgrace” to Medinipur, the birthplace of freedom fighters like Khudiram Bose and Matangini Hazra.

    “You cannot scare me by using the CBI and the ED. I will continue to speak out against injustice and the hate politics of the BJP. My spine is not for sale like some other people who had crossed over to save skin, to stop raids,” the Diamond Harbour MP said.

    A CBI team on February 23 visited the residence of the TMC youth wing president and examined his wife Rujira in connection with a coal pilferage case.

    The agency also examined Rujira’s sister Menaka Gambhir on the previous day on the same matter.

    “Shouldn’t people reject those who consider Medinipur (district) and its different areas as their fiefdom? Shouldn’t people teach those who have brought disgrace to the holy land of Matangini Hazra and Khudiram Bose and other luminaries by their act of betrayal a lesson?” he asked.

    While Khudiram Bose was hanged in 1908 at the age of 18, 72-year-old Hazra was shot dead by the police at Tamluk in undivided Medinipur district in 1942.

    Banerjee said, “Medinipur is not someone’s ancestral property. Medinipur belongs to its people. Haldia, Ghatal, Nandigram, Khejuri and all the places in Purba and Paschim Medinipur districts belong to the people of the areas, not some individuals.”

    Suvendu Adhikari was known as the face of the anti- land acquisition movement in Nandigram during the Left Front rule.

    The Adhikari family holds sway in a number of assembly seats in several south Bengal districts including two Medinipurs.

    Outsiders visiting the district and the state to seek votes will be driven away by voters, the chief minister’s nephew said.

    “They are holding elections in two phases in both Paschim Medinipur and Purba Medinipur. Is it to benefit someone? You are thinking polling will be conducted by outsiders and central forces. Rest assured that all your candidates will forfeit their deposits even if voting takes place in 31 phases for 31 seats,” he said.

    There are 15 assembly seats in Purba Medinipur district and 16 in Paschim Medinipur.

    Elections to the West Bengal assembly will be held in eight phases.

    The first and last phase of polling will be held on March 27 and April 29 respectively.

    Votes will be counted on May 2.

    Wondering how the BJP brands leaders of the ruling party of West Bengal as pro-Bangladesh for chanting “Jai Bangla (hail Bengal)”, Banerjee said, “Even if you cut my throat I will keep chanting Jai Hind, Jai Bangla. I love my country, my state. You cannot muzzle my voice.”

    “Jai Bangla” was a popular slogan during the Bangladesh liberation war.

    Those opposing such slogans have no connection with the roots, with the ethos of Bengal, the TMC leader said at the end of the roadshow.

    Standing atop a blue truck with ‘Didir Doot’ (Emissary of Didi) written on it, Banerjee held the roadshow from Daspur to Ghatal town, covering a distance of over 4 km.

  • EC removes senior Bengal IPS officer a day after announcing poll dates

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: A day after announcing the dates for assembly polls in West Bengal, the Election Commission on Saturday removed Additional Director General of Police (Law and order) Jawed Shamim and brought in Jag Mohan in his place, an official order said.

    Shamim, a 1995-batch IPS officer, will replace Mohan as the DG Fire Services in the rank of ADG, the chief electoral officer (CEO) of the state said in the order.

    The shuffle came hours after a BJP delegation, which included MPs Swapan Dasgupta and Arjun Singh, met CEO Ariz Aftab and urged him to remove “biased” police officers from election duty.

    The Mamata Banerjee government had made Shamim, who was Special Commissioner of Police (II) of the Kolkata Police, the state ADG (Law and order) earlier this month ahead of the assembly polls.

    Elections to the West Bengal assembly will be held in eight phases, up from seven last time.

    The first and last phase of polling will be held on March 27 and April 29 respectively.

    Votes will be counted on May 2.

    On the increased number of phases in the state, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Friday said when the EC assesses the law and order situation, the assessment is based on several factors and it also has to take into account charges and counter-charges by political parties.

    “The way the police administration is functioning in West Bengal, it is evident that fair polling is not possible here.

    We can name a few police officers who are posted in the city.

    If they continue in their posts, free and fair elections are not possible,” Dasgupta told reporters after meeting the CEO.

    He claimed that several requests to Kolkata Police Commissioner Soumen Mitra for a meeting in this connection fell on deaf ears.

    “That’s why we came to the commission today,” the BJP MP added.

    Besides being the Director General Fire Services, Shamim will also hold the charge of DG Civil Defence till further notice, the CEO’s order said.

    Mohan, a 1991-batch IPS officer, will also be the state police nodal officer.