Author: Sunanda Sanyal
Publication: The Statesman
Date: May 2005
URL: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=77534
[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra:
Please also read the article enclosed.]
Every child in West Bengal, aged
over 10, has immediate perception of vote fraud. Come an election, the
CPI-M's "motorbike brigade" patrols the countryside, their leaders send
tatters of white linen, symbol of Hindu widowhood, to the contestants'
wives with the tag: "Stop your husband from submitting the nomination paper,
or prepare to be his widow". The CPI-M cadres scare off their opponents
with threats of gang-rape of their women. The voters are told to stay away
from the polling booths, and leave it to the cadres to stand in for them,
"or vote in front of us if you insist".
True, in some areas of Kolkata fraud
does not take this form, but one can view its footage on TV - of the last
municipal election in Salt Lake City, for example, where the district magistrate
and a police chief looked on as passive bystanders, while gangsters spewing
filth drove away the genuine voters. Nor do you need to go deep into the
villages to find evidence of fraud. Go to Bijpur, a bustling town, barely
a couple of kilometres from Kanchrapara Rail Station, where almost the
entire electorate stands disenfranchised. Indeed, the Jungle Raj - characterised
by the politics of arson, rape and murder - has played havoc all across
the state today.
Ballot rigging
The first massive ballot rigging
in Bengal started during Siddhartha Sankar Ray's years in power. I used
to live then at Nagerbazar, Dum Dum. The booth at which I was registered
was shuttered by 11 am, ''since all the ballots have been cast''. However,
what happened then was a peanut in comparison with what is happening now.
The Left Front has had all the time in the world to cleanse the voting
process.
The late Promode Dasgupta, secretary
of the CPI-M, preferred to set up instead what he called the "election
machinery" - rigging machinery to be sure. The machinery now operates at
all levels of the electoral process, right from voter enrolment down to
vote counting. The most sinister part of it is its reliance on hundreds
of toughs, whom the party has to bring up as such. That is, the party has
a vested interest in Bengali character assassination. Here is an example.
The CPI-M's student wing - the Students'
Federation of India - is said to have over a million members, concentrated
in the colleges and universities. The SFI wins numerous students' union
elections unopposed every year, replicating the CPI-M's victory at the
panchayat poll in 2003. D Bandyopadhyay, a former Land Reforms Commissioner,
says concerning the panchayat election: "Obviously the figure of 6,800
for 2003 is a gross statistical aberration. This statistically aberrant
position tends to substantiate the opposition charge that so many of their
candidates were physically prevented from filing nominations". In 2003,
again, Garhbeta College (West Midnapore), among many others, "required"
no election as the opponents of the SFI "had failed" to put up any candidate
for the 33 seats. This "failure" puts democracy at risk, for how come,
after so many years of CPI-M rule, no students want to oppose its affiliate?
The SFI's clash with the Students'
Forum at the election at the Law College attached to the North Bengal University
in October 2001 shows how it ensures uncontested victories. Shortly before
the election, the SFI started "bombing", seriously injuring two members
of the Forum. They were taken to hospital. Four SFI workers, bombs in hand,
were arrested on the hospital compound. The SFI leaders flocked the court
when the accused were brought there. Concerned over the fact that those
who should train as keepers of the law were allegedly getting practice
in breaking it, the SDJM refused bail.
Poor villagers
An incident at Gurudas College,
Kolkata, shows how the SFI bolsters its numbers. On August 2002, one of
its students, Shampa Dasgupta, was arrested. Police suspected this sickly
girl to be in touch with the People's War group, for she had tried to get
an idea of the living conditions of poor villagers. After her arrest, the
students rushed to join the SFI, fearing that anyone who dared to oppose
the "SFI here might be branded a Naxalite and put behind bars like Shampa".
A newspaper reported: "A grievance
cell, recently set up by the college authorities, is flooded with complaints
of atrocities and even extortion by the SFI". A student complained, "The
SFI leaders sat next to the cashier inside the office room collecting the
subscription of Rs 30 for their fund. When I refused to pay, they shooed
me away before I could submit my papers".
Thus trained, the students, like
the youths of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, form an important
part of the CPI-M's election machinery. A section of the Bengali press,
close to the CPI-M, reported before the Lok Sabha poll in 2004 that the
party was drawing up a list of one lakh students that would ensure the
CPI-M's victory at the hustings. The president of the SFI, however, noted
that election duty put off some of his peers. "But this time every student
must bend his energies unreservedly to securing victory for the LF. Indeed,
we are going to commit our entire vote machinery to this purpose". Judge
now what kind of democratic values the president of the SFI and his one
lakh colleagues are imbibing, with a compliant police force and committed
bureaucracy at their back. If this is not character assassination, what
is?
However, most of the vote-riggers,
aged between and 18 and 40, are jobless school-dropouts, who are generally
guided by someone like hatkata Dilip (Banerjee). Transport minister, Subhas
Chakraborty, came close to admitting that Dilip was released from jail
shortly before the last parliamentary poll - but not at his instance. Dilip's
wife, Baisakhi, told newspapermen that it was the CPI-M leaders that had
made her husband what he was. They had used him in vote-rigging, extortion,
murder and what have you, in their own interest, but chucked him out when
he needed their help. "Where is Subhasda now", she asked, "who promised
Dilip all help whenever he needed it? Well, I hate the political leaders,
having closely observed them. I am sure Dilip in his condemned cell hates
them too. The goons who operate in public suffer: those who manipulate
them from behind do not. Isn't that a shame?"
Clueless people
The end to the shame is not in sight.
In the horrific maelstrom caused by democratic institutions being used
to subvert democracy, and squabbles within the ruling party getting increasingly
bloodier, people in the countryside in particular are clueless as to their
security. Take the case of Adikondo Dolui, a "job assistant'' of the panchayat
at Birsachak (Midnapore), who sided with the Mahajot (Grand Alliance) against
the CPI-M. When a Mahajot leader was killed in a fracas with the CPI-M,
Adikondo, among others of his ilk, joined the CPI-M-led Co-ordination Committee.
The "original cadres", however, continued to bicker with them. After the
murder of a leader of the other faction, they targeted Adikondo, who sheltered
in a local schoolteacher's house. He was hounded out, doused with petrol,
and set on fire - in front of policemen in uniform. As Adikondo was burning
alive, his wife Bijalibala rushed to the spot and cried: "What's burning
there?" A policeman answered: "O, just a dog".
Clearly, being on the side of the
CPI-M does not ensure security any more. Two, Alimuddin Street inspires
little loyalty among its 2,74,000 members - a whopping rise from the CPI's
4,000 in 1949. Most of them crave for the spoils of office. Recently, while
inaugurating a multi-storied party-office complex, built at a cost of nearly
Rs 32 lakh at Jalpaiguri, secretary Anil Biswas regretted the lifestyle
of the upwardly mobile and increasingly free-spending "section of the leadership".
The dichotomy between Biswas's thought and action shows that his regret
is for the record only: that is, the vote fraud will continue unabated
in the forthcoming elections, no matter how fractured the worthless opposition
is.
(The author is former member, West
Bengal Education Commission.)
========================
Election Commission showed bias:
Karat
The Hindu
By Special Correspodent
9th May, 2005
"Disturbing trends during polls
in West Bengal"
After the Rashtriya Janata Dal,
the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has now pointed an accusing finger
at the Election Commission on the "disturbing trends" during the 2004 Lok
Sabha elections in West Bengal.
Prakash Karat, on his first visit
to the State after taking over as CPI (M) general secretary, said the Election
Commission functioned on constitutional lines and discharged its duties
as per its defined role till J.M. Lyngdoh was Chief Election Commissioner.
He had a good word for even M.S. Gill. There had been no complaints till
then.
`Serious issue'
It was not just in Bihar but in
West Bengal too the role of the Election Commission observers was in question.
The issue raised by senior Election Commission officer L.V. Saptharishi
was serious, he said and dismissed the allegations levelled against him
[Mr. Saptharishi] by the BJP. Mr. Karat said Mr. Saptharishi could not
have written a letter to the Union Law Minister without basis.
Mr. Karat said the EC observers
in West Bengal had gone beyond their brief and interfered in the poll process
by asking voters why they voted for the CPI (M), the reasons for the party's
prolonged success and if they felt threatened by the party.
"That was not their job. We complained
to the EC. Till Mr. Lyngdoh and Mr. Gill were there, there were no complaints,"
the CPI (M) leader said.
Integrity, independence
Mr. Karat said the importance of
the EC lay in its independence and integrity and added nothing should happen
to weaken or erode its credibility. He did not comment on the RJD's demand
for the reconstitution of the EC saying the party valued its role in the
public domain.
He said he hoped that the EC would
hold talks with all political parties and ensure that such problems did
not crop up again.
The RJD spokesman, Shivanand Tiwari,
demanded that the EC make public the report submitted by the former Chapra
District Magistrate, B.B. Pradhan, saying it was along the lines of the
one submitted by Mr. Saptharishi. Mr. Pradhan had spoken of how EC officials
had queried local police officials about their caste.
He charged that the confidence of
the people had been eroded and it should make public these reports.
Mr. Tiwari advocated reservation
in the Election Commission and in the judiciary to check caste bias. He
suggested that one member could be from the general category, and the other
two from the scheduled caste and the other backward castes.
