Bengal Government And State Poll Panel Failed To Prevent Violence; Bid To Blame Central Forces Has Sinister Intent

The Trinamool Congress has shrugged off all responsibility for the violence that marked elections to the three-tier panchayat system held Saturday (July 8) and blamed central forces for failing to prevent bloodshed. 

Trinamool seniors led by industries minister Shashi Panja resorted to accuse central forces of failing in their duties. 

According to Panja and her party colleagues, central forces were deployed in Bengal on the orders of the Calcutta High Court over the wishes of the state government and the state election commission. 

“The Opposition parties also clamoured for central forces saying that only central forces could prevent poll violence. But we have seen that the central forces failed completely in fulfilling their duties,” said Panja. 

Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh went a step further and accused central forces of playing a partisan role and helping the BJP. 

State Government and Poll Panel Were Against Central Forces From The Beginning

As was admitted by Panja, the state government and the SEC were against requisitioning central forces and had contended that the Bengal police is competent enough to ensure free and fair polls. 

The Bengal government and the SEC, which plays second fiddle to the ruling party anyway, had planned to get additional armed police from four non-BJP ruled states.

But the Calcutta High Court intervened and ordered deployment of central forces. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court order. 

But in a bid to subvert the court order, state election commissioner (SEC) Rajiva Sinha--a former bureaucrat who owes his position to Mamata Banerjee--asked for just 22 companies of central forces.

The HC came down heavily on Sinha, telling him to step down if he “cannot take orders”, and asked him to requisition 822 companies of central forces. 

Why 822 companies? Because that was the number of central forces deployed in the state during the 2021 Assembly polls in the state. 

But the 2021 Assembly polls in Bengal were held in eight phases and so 822 companies of central forces were sufficient to at least ensure the minimum sanctity of the poll process. 

The 2021 Assembly polls were also marked by horrific violence against Opposition parties, primarily the BJP, but it was the failure of the police and the state administration that failed to prevent those attacks. 

The central forces, acting on the orders of the Election Commission of India (ECI), were deployed only in and around polling booths. And they were successful in effectively thwarting numerous bids by Trinamool cadres to ‘capture’ booths and cast proxy and false votes. 

What Happened This Time

Forced by the High Court to ask for 822 companies of central forces, a sulking SEC went on to frustrate the intent of the Court order. 

This time, central forces were not deployed properly and were placed under the command of the state police which is completely subservient to the Trinamool Congress. 

The SEC, Rajiva Sinha, did not share a proper deployment plan with the nodal officer of the central forces and also did not provide proper logistical support to the forces. 

A sizable section of central forces were deployed to guard strong rooms where ballot boxes were kept and not deployed in polling booths. 

Central forces were also not deployed at trouble spots and sensitive areas where Opposition parties had apprehended violence and rigging by Trinamool cadres. 

Those apprehensions came true and when Trinamool cadres launched attacks on Opposition workers and supporters, prevented people from going to cast their votes, captured booths and cast proxy votes, central forces were not present to tackle the trouble-makers.

Why Central Forces Cannot be Blamed

When central forces are sent to a state during elections, they are placed under the supervision of the state administration which is supposed to act in a neutral manner. 

The state administration functions as a vital arm of the ECI during Parliamentary and Assembly polls. The ECI is the final authority on conduct of Parliamentary and Assembly polls and, through its central observers, supervises the deployment and duties of central forces. 

But the SEC conducts panchayat elections and it is up to the SEC to ensure proper deployment of central forces. Since the SEC, and its political masters, were against deployment of central forces right from the very beginning, it stands to reason that the two entities did not deploy the central forces effectively. 

As has been stated, the central forces were placed under the supervision of police officers. Central forces could not act on their own even when violence broke out without the express orders of the police officers. 

Since the police force in Bengal is heavily politicised and is accused of acting as an adjunct of the ruling party, it is no surprise that police officers steered central forces away from trouble spots and did not grant them permission to intervene even when there was trouble. 

Thus, it is the state government and the SEC that are to blame for the violence, and not central forces. The central forces were not deployed properly, were not provided adequate logistical support and were often kept away from trouble spots. 

Non-Arrival Of Central Forces

The Trinamool Congress will also find fault with the non-arrival of 144 of the 822 companies of central forces till polling was over at 5 pm Saturday. 

It needs to be mentioned here that a bulk of the central forces (the central armed police forces, or the CAPFs) are deployed all over the country at places where their presence is necessary, be it at the international borders or at conflict zones within the country like Maoist-affected areas, Manipur, and Kashmir. 

The CAPFs are: Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), National Security Guard (NSG) and Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB).

While the BSF, ITBP and SSB are deployed at the international borders, the CISF is deployed at airports and other vital installations. The NSG is used for special operations and the CRPF is deployed to assist states in maintaining law and order (as in Manipur) and in combating terroritsts in states like Chhattisgarh and some parts of the Northeast. 

A bulk of the total strength of these CAPFs are already deployed in the field. Only a small percentage (less than 25 per cent) are not on the field and on ‘reserve duties’, or are undergoing their routine training. 

The High Court ordered the SEC to requisition 822 companies of central forces on June 21. It is simply not possible to, for instance, pull out a number of companies of the CRPF from Kashmir at a short notice without compromising the security grid there.

Similarly, it is not possible to pull out ITBP or BSF battalions from the Indo-China or Indo-Pakistan borders at a short notice of a couple of weeks and send them to Bengal. 

Such deployment takes time, and the 822 companies of central forces could be sent to Bengal for the 2021 Assembly polls because the ECI gave adequate time to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). 

Also, since the polling was held in eight phases in 2021, 822 companies of central forces were enough to ensure the sanctity of the poll process by thwarting attempts by the Trinamool cadres to rig the polls. 

The 2021 Assembly elections being held in phases allowed the movement of central forces from one district where elections were over to another district where elections were due. Thus, central forces could be deployed in every single polling booth.

But this time, with polling being held in a single phase, the central forces were stretched too thin and 822 companies were simply not enough to provide security to all the 61,636 polling booths. 

Central forces have to adhere to their SOPs (standard operating procedures) which lay down that (CAPF) personnel have to be deployed in groups (of at least four to five) and cannot be put on solitary duty at one spot or on a solitary patrol. 

Thus, it would have required at least 2,46,544 CAPF personnel to guard every polling booth. The operational strength of one CAPF company is 72, and it would have thus required over 3424 companies of CAPFs to provide security cover to all the polling booths in Bengal. 

To put it in perspective, the CRPF has 3.13 lakh personnel, the CISF’s total strength is 1.44 lakh, the BSF’s total strength is 2.92 lakh and that of the ITBP is 89,432. Thus, the entire CRPF or BSF or CISFor ITBP would not have been enough to provide security to all polling booths in Bengal. 

And deployment of an entire force (CRPF or BSF or CISF or ITBP) for the conduct of panchayat polls in one state is simply not feasible. It can never happen. 

Why Blaming Central Forces Has A Sinister Intent

The Trinamool’s act of blaming the central forces is not an innocuous one aimed at simply shifting the blame for the dismal failure of the state government (and the SEC) to ensure free, fair and peaceful polls.

It has a hidden and sinister intent. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had, while campaigning for the panchayat polls in North Bengal, accused the BSF of harassing locals and asking them to vote for the BJP. 

She had railed and ranted against the BSF and asked the state administration to keep a watch on the border force. She had alleged that the BSF was warning voters in the border areas against supporting the Trinamool. 

Those were grave but false allegations which she would never have been able to substantiate. Nonetheless, those allegations forced the BSF to issue a rebuttal. 

Mamata Banerjee and her party leaders had also been trying to undermine the central forces by labelling them as ineffective. She had said many times in the recent past that central forces had failed to restore peace in Manipur.

Banerjee hasn’t limited herself to attacking CAPFs only. Even the army has been fair game for attacks by her. 

In December 2016, when the army deployed its personnel at toll gates in the state as part of a routine annual exercise to collect data on availability of load carriers, the chief minister made the preposterous allegation that the army had been deployed by the Union Government to unseat her from power in Bengal!

Banerjee called the army’s presence at toll plazas on highways an attempted ‘coup’ and locked herself up at the state secretariat the whole night. When it came to light that the army had intimated the police about the exercise, Banerjee made another ludicrous allegation that army personnel had extorted money from vehicles at the toll gates.

Mamata Banerjee, and other Trinamool leaders, have been trying to malign central forces and the army ever since the party came to power in Bengal in 2011. The entire intent, say political observers, is to turn Bengal’s populace--or at least a sizable section of the populace--against the central forces and the army, and thus undermine the federal government and its authority. 

This seemingly is part of Mamata Banerjee’s design to bolster Bengali sub-nationalism and project herself as the prime proponent and protector of Bengal and Bengalis. 

But this design has grave and adverse national security implications.

She has to be stopped from doing so. The intent of the Trinamool Congress has to be curbed, and in an exemplary and steely manner, before any damage can be done to the country.