Suman Chakraborti & Debamoy Ghosh | TNN
2000 municipal election, Salt Lake FD Block: CPM men beat up Trinamool Congress supporters and hurl bombs to capture Ward 16.
2005 municipal election, Salt Lake, BK Block: Jyoti Basu’s confidential assistant Joykrisna Ghosh and former CPM MP Amitava Nandy heckled by Trinamool supporters and police.
2010 municipal election, Salt Lake: No clash, no rigging, no booth jamming. Only police ‘excesses’.
Contrary to the fears of many that elections in Salt Lake will be violent this time, too, the entire polling process from 7am to 3pm was so peaceful that even police seemed apparently confused. After all they have been at the receiving end for years.
Even places where bombings were a common affair — Duttabad, Mahisbathan and the bheris — were unnaturally calm. Many voters, elderly and the young, came out freely to cast their votes. Polling in the township was as high as 70%. And this time, it was genuine voting.
“I did not have any trouble casting my vote,” said Kamalika Das of Duttabad, who walked the 3km from Purbachal with her three-month-old baby.
In most of the 126 booths of the township, voters preferred the early hours. There were long queues from 7am to 9 am, but booths were almost empty after 11am. Only a small section of people preferred to cast their vote in the latter half of the day.
With the state election commission (SEC) issuing tough prohibitory orders — any outsider was liable to be arrested and private buses and taxis were barred from entering the township — not many outsiders were seen in Salt Lake, a welcome change compared to previous occasions. The central forces ensured that those who had entered into the township in the past few days could not create any trouble.
What was also surprising was the bonhomie between contesting candidates at some places — a rare sight in Salt Lake. In Ward 8, CPM candidate Chandra Sarkar, Trinamool candidate Swati Banerjee and Congress candidate Arpita Chowdhury were seen chatting with each other. And in Ward 3, CPM candidate Sharmila Das and Trinamool candidate Anindya Chatterjee were having a pleasant talk.
The SEC had provided 60 companies of central forces in four layers of security. The Bengal police apparently did not have much to do after this.
The state police seemed to act overzealously on the administration’s directive to arrest outsiders. At many places, police tried to nab every person they suspected to be an outsider, and ended up harassing many innocent locals.
Samir Kumar Dutta, a resident of AB-278, was on his way to market when he was accosted by a few police officers. They demanded to know who he was and where he was going. Dutta explained that he had cast his vote in the morning and was out to buy groceries but one of the cops asked him to leave the place. Dutta kept insisting that his rights were being violated. One of the senior Bidhannagar officers allegedly caught him by the neck and dumped him in a police van.
2005 municipal election, Salt Lake, BK Block: Jyoti Basu’s confidential assistant Joykrisna Ghosh and former CPM MP Amitava Nandy heckled by Trinamool supporters and police.
2010 municipal election, Salt Lake: No clash, no rigging, no booth jamming. Only police ‘excesses’.
Contrary to the fears of many that elections in Salt Lake will be violent this time, too, the entire polling process from 7am to 3pm was so peaceful that even police seemed apparently confused. After all they have been at the receiving end for years.
Even places where bombings were a common affair — Duttabad, Mahisbathan and the bheris — were unnaturally calm. Many voters, elderly and the young, came out freely to cast their votes. Polling in the township was as high as 70%. And this time, it was genuine voting.
“I did not have any trouble casting my vote,” said Kamalika Das of Duttabad, who walked the 3km from Purbachal with her three-month-old baby.
In most of the 126 booths of the township, voters preferred the early hours. There were long queues from 7am to 9 am, but booths were almost empty after 11am. Only a small section of people preferred to cast their vote in the latter half of the day.
With the state election commission (SEC) issuing tough prohibitory orders — any outsider was liable to be arrested and private buses and taxis were barred from entering the township — not many outsiders were seen in Salt Lake, a welcome change compared to previous occasions. The central forces ensured that those who had entered into the township in the past few days could not create any trouble.
What was also surprising was the bonhomie between contesting candidates at some places — a rare sight in Salt Lake. In Ward 8, CPM candidate Chandra Sarkar, Trinamool candidate Swati Banerjee and Congress candidate Arpita Chowdhury were seen chatting with each other. And in Ward 3, CPM candidate Sharmila Das and Trinamool candidate Anindya Chatterjee were having a pleasant talk.
The SEC had provided 60 companies of central forces in four layers of security. The Bengal police apparently did not have much to do after this.
The state police seemed to act overzealously on the administration’s directive to arrest outsiders. At many places, police tried to nab every person they suspected to be an outsider, and ended up harassing many innocent locals.
Samir Kumar Dutta, a resident of AB-278, was on his way to market when he was accosted by a few police officers. They demanded to know who he was and where he was going. Dutta explained that he had cast his vote in the morning and was out to buy groceries but one of the cops asked him to leave the place. Dutta kept insisting that his rights were being violated. One of the senior Bidhannagar officers allegedly caught him by the neck and dumped him in a police van.
In another case, 70-year-old N C Pal, a resident of BE-29, was left floundering as a relative he had called for help in an emergency was blocked by an election official. The College Street resident had reached Salt Lake Tank No 4 when a police jeep intercepted him. He managed to convince the police but an officer on election duty stepped in, and asked him to leave. Pal contacted police over phone and offered his voter’s ID card for verification but the poll official refused to budge. Pal had to go all the way to Ultadanga. “I was disappointed,” he said.
Another 70-year-old, Dilip Majumder, who had come from Dum Dum to Salt Lake on a ‘personal matter’ said he was harassed by police and Trinamool Congress men. “I did not go anywhere near a booth. I pleaded that I had some work but they did not listen,” he said. The CRPF finally defused the situation.
Police even stopped maids and vegetable and fruit vendors from entering Salt Lake.
Police even stopped maids and vegetable and fruit vendors from entering Salt Lake.
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