The BJP-RSS combine and the Modi government which have been already been working on the plan to force her out of the office of the chief minister by depriving her the opportunity to contest the by elections and become the member of the assembly will certainly use the verdict to destabilise her government.

Ever since Modi and Amit Shah lost Bengal to Mamata, they have busy framing a plan to finish her. Election Commission not holding the by election to seven assembly seats is the part of the same design. Mamata had lost from Nandigram but became the chief minister. Under Constitutional provisions she has to get elected to assembly within six months. She can continue to hold the office of chief minister till November 4. In normal manner the EC should have announced the date for holding the elections. But it has been delaying it on the pretext of following the corona protocol. On their part the TMC leaders on not less than four occasion called on the Election Commission and urged them to hold the election.

The verdict of the High Court would go against Mamata was clearly evident from the report of the seven member team of the National Human Rights Commission. The team in its report to the court has blamed the TMC for post-poll violence. The team was free to reject the argument of Mamata but it must have examined the role of the officials those who ran the state administration and the Commissioners of the Election Commission who issued instructions to the state officials.

It is an open secret that EC behaved like a passive spectator, in a partition manner and allowed the violence to take place. It even did not instantly react to the incident in which five persons were shot dead by the central forces in Cooch Behar on the false alibi of stopping the violence during the polling. Later it transpired that they wanted to terrorise the minority voter not to come to the booth.

Mamata had alleged that one of the NHRC members was a BJP member and associated with the All Indian BJP Student’s wing. She even dared; “You can check his social media accounts-Facebook and Twitter to check if I am correct. Whatever was written by the BJP party office, was written by him, and submitted as a report to the Court. It is like a fake video”. The state was under EC till May 3. She was given responsibility as a caretaker for one day on May 5 but she had no power in her hand on that day. “

The Chairperson of NHRC Arun Mishra while forming the team should have at least maintained the façade of neutrality and must not inducted known BJP men as the members of the team. He nurses soft corner for Modi is known to everyone. While sitting on the bench of Supreme Court he some occasions had not deterred from public identifying himself with Modi and eulogising him. There is a famous adage justice is not only be done, but it must appear that it is being done. In this case Mishra should gave adhered to the adage.

The phrase used by the NHRC in its report provides an insight into the motive of the team. In its report the committee said that the "law of ruler" had replaced "rule of law" in Bengal. Obviously it implied that Mamata and none else should be held responsible for the post-poll violence. Once her involvement is confirmed in the CBI probe legal and judicial action ought to be taken against her.

It is intriguing to see that the BJP cadres suffered most in their own strongholds, their base areas. Even while the election process was on some edit-page articles by eminent BJP intellectuals were carried out by some papers narrating as to how the Muslims in some areas were forcing the Hindu voters out of their villages and making them live in the camps. The EC should have investigated into these allegations and taken remedial action. Why the EC did not make any attempt for their return to their house. Obviously it puts the credibility and intentions of the EC and the Modi government under scrutiny. These incidents were being enacted with an eye on the future.

The High Court ordering a CBI probe into violence that allegedly took place in the aftermath of the announcement of the West Bengal Assembly poll results on May 2, obviously implied that it had immense faith in the CBI and believes in its neutrality. But it is worth mentioning that only on August 18 the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has expressed its reservation on the functioning of CBI by saying that the agency should be made an independent statutory body. Recommending that the CBI should only be accountable to Parliament, the judges N Kirubakaran and B Pugalendhi had observed: “This order is an attempt to release the “Caged Parrot (CBI).” The Supreme Court had also described the agency as a “caged parrot” during a hearing of the Coalfield allocation cases in 2013.

Nevertheless two judges on the bench, Justice I.P Mukerji and Justice Soumen Sen did not approve of the manner in which the NHRC has built up its case. Justice Mukherjee in his judgment noted that the NHRC committee was under an obligation to observe the procedure prescribed under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 before making any recommendations. "Even if we assume that the Committee was making a recommendation under the said Act, the view expressed by it was without compliance with that procedure. Therefore the part of the report expressing opinion, making recommendations etc. is non-est in the eye of law", Justice Mukerji opined.

Similarly, Justice Sen in his judgment also set aside the recommendations made by the NHRC committee, by observing that the committee's mandate was only to do fact-finding. "Although the fact finding committee has made scathing remarks and made recommendations against politicians and police officers I am of the view that such remarks and recommendations were uncalled for and to that extent the committee has transgressed its limits", Justice Sen observed.

The petitioners had levelled serious allegations of murder, rape and destruction of property against perpetrators of the violence. The NHRC has even alleged; “This was retributive violence by supporters of the ruling party against supporters of the main opposition party." However it could bring only one case of murder before the court. It obviously underlined that it failed to gather more evidences of murder. It is absolutely clear that BJP-RSS combine and Modi government have been trying to a strong and impeccable case against Mamata and her government.

It ought to be pointed out that just after the conclusion of the electoral process, some senior BJP leaders had started clamouring for sacking of Mamata government and imposition of President’s rule in the state. The fact of matter is after three rounds of the voting the BJP had come to realise that they had lost the electoral war. Since then they had started preparing their ground to involve Mamata in false and fabricated cases. Otherwise too stray cases of poll violence used to take place in every election. But this time the BJP-RSS think tank had planned to project it in a magnum proportion and present it as the symbol of connivance of the government in allowing endurance of violence. Senior TMC leader Saugata Roy said: “If in every law and order matter, which is entirely within state government’s jurisdiction, the CBI comes in, it is transgression on state’s right. I’m sure state government will judge the situation & take a decision to appeal to a higher court if necessary." (IPA Service)