Conditions have deteriorated to the point where in certain areas of Burdwan and Birbhum districts, opposition parties are retaliating and physically attacking their Trinamool Congress (TMC) adversaries from the ruling party. The failure of the police in maintaining minimum order is near total. Earlier, armed TMC cadres have been attacking Left opposition parties, the Cong(I) and BJP workers in Cooch Behar, Malda, Nadia, Birbhum, Howrah, Hooghly, north and south 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore and Bankura districts. Opposition leaders allege that a state of civil war has been unleashed upon the state.

Even as Left cadres attacked TMC supporters in Burdwan, a former CPI(M) MLA was shot dead by miscreants on Saturday. The CPI(M) had called a 12-hour bandh in Asansol on Monday (June 11) in protest.

The role of the state police has been that of a by-stander. Reports suggest that not more than 100 people, mostly opposition party supporters, have been rounded up while the wave of violence has been sweeping the state. The blatantly partisan role of the administration has been indirectly shaped by the TMC’s official stand on all incidents reported so far: ‘No TMC member is involved. If the TMC cadres were so aggressive, how could so many Left candidates submit their nominations for the panchayat elections?’, ask TMC leaders like senior minister Partha Chatterjee.

This is consistent with the stand taken by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee regarding the demand for outstation forces to be used for law and order duty during the pre-poll political campaign. It is already underway while there remains a palpable shortage of police and other forces. It seems this may be the situation even on the scheduled polling days, July 2, July 6 and July 10.

She makes no secret of her reluctance to use any central paramilitary personnel during the election and even forces from other states. The SEC has notified a shortfall of around 80,000 personnel that would be needed in addition to the state policemen to ensure free and fair polling, as well as maintain law and order.

To make things difficult for the SEC, the state has written to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab (all non Congress governments) requesting them to send forces. It also wrote very late to the Centre, which reported its inability to help.

Intriguingly, Banerjee casually spelt out the details of her sensitive correspondence on these matters to newsmen few days ago. But the state government did not bother to inform the SEC of its actions, despite repeated urgings. Relations between the SEC and the state government have sunk to an all time low, for the first time in recent years. The SEC, helpless in the face of continued non co-operation and stonewalling on part of the state administration, was compelled to approach the Kolkata High court for relief.

The SEC’s basic objective, to ensure that willing contestants were able to file nominations in peace, has not been fulfilled. Around 3,000 TMC candidates are about to be elected unopposed at the lowest gram panchayat level from Bankura, Hooghly and other areas. Opposition parties point out that this is almost 10 per cent of the total seats.

However, the situation is not unprecedented. During the Left Front regime too, non-Left opposition candidates from the Congress and the TMC could not file their papers peacefully, which led to unopposed victories for thousands of Left candidates! ‘This is a case of the wheel having come full circle, especially in many parts of Hooghly, known to be a den of Leftists until recently,’ said an observer. Perhaps a sense of divine justice prompted even the SEC head Meera Pande, no admirer of the State government, to hint that the opposition might have been protesting too loudly in 2013.

Tinkering with the administrative machinery to secure narrow political ends can turn out to be a dangerous game, the TMC may yet learn. The unwritten official directive to the state police seems to be to serve the interests of the ruling TMC, in 2013. It used be the CPI(M), until 2011. However, politically partial functioning of the police also contributes to a sharp deterioration in its general performance. The inefficiency and bias of the administration have become so obvious that now common people have begin to react. Coming on top of the recent electoral trend seen in the Howrah LS seat by poll and elections to three state assembly seats, indicating an erosion of support for the TMC, it is certainly time for its leaders to take note.

What happened in two instances in north 24 Parganas at Barasat and Barrackpore recently is significant. At Barasat, a young college girl was gangraped, stripped naked and left dead by a roadside pond. The area has seen several instances of sexual crime and brutal murders. Large stretches are deemed unsafe for people after sunset. Despite repeated requests and urgings, the police have been inactive against known criminals close to local TMC leaders, who terrorise common people.

This time, the anger of the people exploded. Common people staged a road blockade for hours, shouting slogans against the police and local TMC leaders. Worried, Chief Minister sent state Minister for Food Jyotipriya Mullick and the local TMC MP to speak to the people. Both were heckled. The MPs’ car was damaged by angry demonstrators who protested his order to the police to lathicharge them.

Mullick fared even worse. When he announced that the Chief Minister had announced a job for the next of kin of the deceased, the mob shouted, ‘We are not beggars, keep your money. You ask the Chief Minister to come here and order police to arrest the killers.’ Showing rare initiative, the police arrested six people and set up a police camp. Tension prevailed in the area on Sunday, too.

What happened at Barrackpore was also shocking. There is much violence among rival TMC factions vying for power and local prominence, often leading to incidents of arson and murder. At Barrackpore, a TMC worker (a bouncer at a cinema hall) belonging to one party faction was shot dead by suspected rivals of the other faction. The next morning, about 250 armed men began a rampage of the local area, attacking the household of the leader of the rival faction. Then they targeted local shops, local people and cars, which they looted, smashed or damaged. People in the market place were beaten up and chased away regardless of age and sex. “There was total chaos and lawlessness because of the violence launched by one group of the TMC led by local MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya and the other led by his rival Arjun Singh, who imported some strongmen from Bihar some days ago. It was the ‘Bihar gang’, which was running amuck. We had never seen anything like this before. The Police were not there,” said an eyewitness to a local newspaper.

The mob then ganged up on two men working for separate TV channels who had gone to cover the incidents. Not only they beat up the journalists mercilessly with iron rods, bamboo sticks etc, and kicking them all over their body. They procured petrol to set them alight, but stopped when the police arrived.

Both newsmen were later admitted to city hospitals, where doctors stated their injuries were ‘serious’ and would take time to heal. Opposition leaders like Nirbed Roy, Shamik Bhattacharya, Biman Bose and Suryakanta Mishra visited them. For the TMC, only local MP Dinesh Trivedi turned up.

Caught on the wrong foot, Chief Minister Banerjee promised strong action. A few people were rounded up but the ringleaders remained untraced. Common people and intellectuals got together to condemn the TMC and the state administration for their collective role and failure in ensuring minimum law and order. “Is there any government at all functioning here?” was a common question asked by most people. Not that the TMC leaders seemed to care. They have heard such condemnation too many times already during their two-year tenure already. “Yes, but they should at least understand that as in Barasat, the patience of the people is running out over their antics,” said an observer. (IPA)