With West Bengal's crucial panchayat elections set to be held on Saturday, the state remains on high alert with heavy deployment of central forces in all polling booths. Around 5.67 crore people are eligible to cast their votes in the three-tier panchayat polls for nearly 74,000 seats in zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats.
With several people killed and injured in the run-up to the polls, there are apprehensions if polling day will pass peacefully especially in violence hot-spots like Bhangar, Cooch Behar, Basanti, Murshidabad and Nandigram. The Calcutta High Court had earlier ordered deployment of central forces to all polling stations on voting day. The State Election Commission has also directed district authorities to ensure that two armed police personnel—one each from central forces and state police— be deployed at each booth on polling day on Saturday.
Nearly 65,000 active central police personnel and 70,000 state police personnel will be deployed for the rural polls. Meanwhile on Thursday, HC directed the central forces to be deployed across West Bengal for 10 days after the poll results are declared in July 11, to ensure “safety of elected members”.
On Friday, just a day before the polls, a Congress worker was allegedly beaten to death by unidentified people in Murshidabad district. West Bengal Governor C.V Ananda Bose, who has been touring violence-hit areas over the past few weeks, arrived in Murshidabad district on Friday. Bose will also visit places like Domkal, Khargram, Navagram, and Beldanga, where clashes among political parties have been reported ahead of the polls. According to reports, 16 people have been killed in the violence during the campaign for the polls.
Campaigning for the crucial rural polls concluded on Thursday. The ruling Trinamool Congress, the BJP and an alliance of the Congress and Left parties are the key players in the fray. For the TMC and the BJP, the rural polls will be a litmus test ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In 2018, the TMC swept the panchayat elections by winning 73 per cent of the gram panchayat seats, 90 per cent of the panchayat samitis and 95 per cent of the zilla parishad seats, the Quint reported. Interestingly, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party won 34 per cent of seats unopposed—there were no candidates from the opposition parties in all these seats.
