Bengal Violence: Panchayat Polls Will Be a Precursor of What's to Come Next Year

The West Bengal panchayat (rural bodies) elections announced on June 8 with polling scheduled for 8 July, has opened a Pandora’s box with the death toll in inter-party clashes already rising to nine, pitched gun battles and bomb explosions, the Calcutta High Court and Supreme Court ordering the deployment of central forces for impartial policing, besides roping in the CBI to probe charges levelled by the opposition against state government officials of colluding with the ruling party.

The overall atmosphere is badly vitiated by the BJP, CPI(M) and Congress Party accusing the TMC of unleashing its cadres backed by the police and administrative machinery to browbeat the opposition and rig the elections. Adding to the volatility are the words and deeds of Governor C V Bose who has set up a control room in the Raj Bhavan to monitor the situation which is absolutely unprecedented! While TMC flatly denies any wrongdoing, although the bloodstains are spreading fast and the smell of gunpowder fills the air.        

The Legitimacy of the Gun in West Bengal

West Bengal today appears to be the epicentre of electoral violence in the country. The recent incident-free and peaceful Karnataka assembly polls really stand out in contrast. But let’s not forget that brute force is woven into Bengal’s politics for decades.

The gun has enjoyed legitimacy since the days of the Sepoy mutiny which started from Barrackpore, revolutionary groups like Anushilan and Jugantar which practised targeted killings, Subhash Chandra Bose who defied Gandhi-Nehru’s philosophy of non-violence, the Naxalbari uprising and the Youth Congress-police counter-attack. Communists who ruled from 1977 to 2011 also put a big premium on firepower.  

Yet the national press has put Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the dock and pronounced her guilty. An editorial in The Indian Express said that “what has happened before -- the use of party cadres and government machinery during the long Left rule -- is no longer an alibi or excuse.” It added that “Banerjee has the political clout to draw the red lines for her party. Her continuing failure to do so is a stain on her government.”

Statistics of the death toll in previous panchayat polls in West Bengal reveal a steady trend, although there were as many as 76 casualties in 2003 during Left Front rule. Around 45 persons were killed in a single district -- Murshidabad – and the toll on voting day was 13. The casualties figure in 2008 stood at 30. In the first panchayat elections during TMC rule in 2013, the death toll was 39 with 25 killed on voting day. In the last panchayat polls in 2018 when TMC won 34 percent of seats unopposed, the number of casualties was 30.

The 2003 panchayat polls during Left Front rule were indeed the bloodiest in two decades. Intriguingly, although in power, the CPIM) bore the brunt with as many as 31 casualties, followed by the Congress at 19 and the BJP and TMC at eight each.

An Outcome of 'Pratirodh'

Since then violence seems to have tapered off. The death toll in 2008 was substantially less at 30, the casualty figures after TMC came to power rose to 39 in 2013 before falling to 30 in the last panchayat polls, revealing an overall decrease. Nonetheless, Mamata got a lot of negative publicity in 2018 -- which fuelled resentment and anger against TMC resulting in the BJP winning a record number of seats -- 18 out of 42 -- in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Significantly, the nine persons killed so far after the nomination process for panchayat polls started are mostly Muslims. The dead belong to the opposition CPI(M), Congress and the Islamic Secular Front (ISF) as well as TMC. They were killed in clashes in Malda, Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts which have substantive Muslim population and all parties, barring BJP, have Muslim cadres reflecting the high percentage of Muslim population.

The killings are the outcome of “pratirodh” -- the Bengali word for “resistance”. This means that TMC is facing stiff resistance from a rejuvenated CPI(M) and Congress in rural Bengal, as well as from the ISF in some pockets like Bhangar.

Going by this indicator, Muslims are not going to vote en masse for the TMC this time as they did in the 2021 assembly polls. And that’s really bad news for the TMC and good news for the non-BJP opposition alliance comprising the CPI(M), Congress and ISF.

What's at Stake

At stake are about 73,887 seats of the three-tier panchayat raj -- 63,239 seats at the Gram Panchayat level, 9,730 seats in Panchayat Samitis, and 928 Zilla Parishad seats. While TMC is contesting almost every single seat, BJP has filed 56,321 nominations or about 75 percent of seats, CPI(M) has filed nominations for 48,646 seats or 65 percent of seats, and the Congress has filed nominations for 17, 750 seats or 24 percent of seats.

Unlike in 2018 when TMC won 34 percent of seats unopposed rightly triggering a nationwide furore, in 2023 TMC won only 10 percent of seats unopposed. This time around, the reason for TMC winning 10 percent of seats unopposed is not coercion or intimidation but because the opposition simply lacks the wherewithal and organisational strength to field candidates everywhere.

Notably, the CPI(M) and Congress practically have the whole state covered between them and are contesting 90 percent of the seats as an alliance. The Congress is focused on Murshidabad and Malda to make the best use of its limited resources. But the high number of CPI(M)-Congress nominations shows that the coalition has covered a lot of ground after the drubbing in 2021 when they failed to win a single assembly seat.

I think that the panchayat poll results next month will be an excellent indicator of what’s coming next year. I say this because the TMC’s performance in the 2008 panchayat elections first heralded its rise. In 2008, TMC took control of only two Zilla Parishads but it won nearly 50 percent of panchayat seats across the state.

The Left failed to read the first signs of the impending loss of power. It ignored the larger panchayat mandate saying that TMC capturing two Zilla Parishads is not such a big deal. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Left Front managed to win only 15 seats while the TMC and Congress which had a pre-poll alliance won 19 and six seats respectively. And two years later, in 2011, TMC trounced the Left Front in assembly elections.

The significance of panchayat results should not be underestimated simply because rural bodies polls are not as glamorous as parliamentary and assembly elections. Next month’s outcome will be a good barometer of Bengal voters’ choice ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

(SNM Abdi is a distinguished journalist and ex-Deputy Editor of Outlook. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)