Bengal Elections 2021 : An Overview

As India battles the world's most devastating Covid-19 outbreak, analysts are pointing to uncontrolled mass gatherings as a factor in the disease's spread. The West Bengal Assembly elections are a good example.

The West Bengal Legislative Assembly, as established by Article 168[1] of the Indian Constitution, is the unicameral legislature of West Bengal's only chamber. It is not a permanent body and also is subject to dissolution. Unless dissolved earlier, the Legislative Assembly has a five-year term from the date of its first sitting. The citizens elect members of the Legislative Assembly directly. The new West Bengal Legislative Assembly's term is set to expire on May 30, 2021.

The election plan was released on February 26, 2021 and from March 27 to April 29, election took place in eight phases across 23 West Bengal districts for 292 of the 294 Assembly seats. Elections in two seats in Murshidabad district — Shamsherganj and Jangipur — have been postponed till 16 May due to the death of two candidates[2].

2016 Elections

The All-India Trinamool Congress (AITC or TMC) maintained its majority in the Legislative Assembly with 211 seats in the previous elections in 2016. Fighting within a coalition, the Indian National Congress won 44 seats and the Left Front won 33. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, on the other hand, each won three seats out of a total of 294 seats[3].

How COVID-19 Affected Elections in State?

The West Bengal polls, stretched out over eight phases of polling, could be described as "super-spreaders." West Bengal is seeing a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and casualties, with many health professionals blaming couple of weeks political extravaganzas for the coronavirus spread in both urban and rural areas of the state.

However, the Election Commission of India released numerous medical recommendations for holding elections in the middle of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Masks should be worn, polling booths should be sanitized, thermal scanners should be used before accessing polling booths, and social distance should be maintained, among other things. The maximum number of voters per polling station has also been reduced from 1500 to 1000[4].

West Bengal had just 3,380 operating Covid-19 cases on March 20, a week before the initial phase of polling. On April 26, when the state voted in its seventh process, there were 94,949 active cases, a 28-fold rise. During the same time span, the number of new cases per day increased from 383 to 15,992, a 40-fold increase[5].As a consequence, West Bengal currently has the highest Covid-19 growth rate of any state in India. According to data from the Government of India, the rate was 9.5 percent on April 26 when calculated using a seven-day moving average.

Dr Punyabrata Goon, convener of the West Bengal Doctors' Forum, said, "There is no question that the election process contributed to the spread of corona in West Bengal." “Bengal had the disease under control until February and March. However, as the movement began to draw huge crowds and people from affected states, the number of cases began to rise.”

Regardless of how quickly the covid cases grew, political considerations remained paramount. The Trinamool Congress was the only party to ask the commission to shorten the election by combining phases. As the most powerful party on the field, it was most likely to be unaffected by the campaigning restrictions. On the other hand, the BJP has recommended the commission to stick to the initial eight-phase election schedule. The commission decided to follow the BJP's recommendation.

The Election Commission have placed stringent restrictions on campaigns to curb the sharp increase in coronavirus incidents in West Bengal, following harsh criticism from the Calcutta High Court. National officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have suspended rallies in the state as a result[6].

Results of West Bengal Elections

Mamata Banerjee, the chairwoman of the Trinamool Congress, led her party to one of its most significant political successes in the last three decades by single-handedly preventing the BJP juggernaut in Bengal, opening the way for her third term as Chief Minister.

With over 48 percent of all votes cast, this was one of the Trinamool Congress's most significant victories. The TMC won 211 seats in the 2016 Assembly elections, with a voter turnout of about 44.9 percent[7].The victory also propels the 66-year-old Trinamool Congress chairwoman to the forefront of national politics, with all of the opposition parties' leaders applauding her on her historic victory.

For the third time in a row, Mamata Banerjee was sworned in as the state's chief minister on May 5th in Kolkata, at the Raj Bhawan. In Nandigram, however, the mercurial chief was defeated by Suvendu Adhikari, a former protege who is now a BJP opponent. Meanwhile, the challenger Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received far less votes than predicted, winning only 77 seats[8].

Violence After Results In West Bengal

Nearly a week after the fiercely fought West Bengal Assembly election results were announced, post-poll violence has continued in various parts of the state.

There are four other states or union territories where voting results have been declared, although there are no reports of vendettas or vindictive abuse. Homes are being burned, BJP employees are being lynched, and mobs are taking over the streets only in TMC-ruled Bengal. The use of violence against political rivals, which reached new heights during the 2018 panchayat elections, continues[9].

Following the announcement of the Assembly election results, the West Bengal BJP leadership said that party activists were being targeted. Six people, including five conservative supporters, have been killed in the last 24 hours, according to Dilip Ghosh, the party's state president[10].

Yet after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called for calm, declared compensation for all those who died, and the Union Home Ministry dispatched a team to assess the situation, a slew of false posts and videos have emerged on various social media platforms.

The official pages of Kolkata police and West Bengal police have been occupied sifting details related to violence over the last few days. Confirmed social media messages West Bengal police called out Delhi-based channels about BJP polling officers reportedly being raped in Birbhum as fake as early as May 4. On May 6, Kolkata police debunked another fake post in which a pro-BJP page alleged that a party worker named Mainak Moitra had been killed in Sitalkuchi[11].

What Can Be Concluded?

Finally, the ‘professional' election administration represents a watershed moment in Bengal's, if not the country's, history. Following the landslide victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Mamata Banerjee delegated political strategy and administration to Prashant Kishor's team (IPAC or Team PK), which formed a separate organization from the party. They assisted in the development of new and common initiatives, the creation of a new logo, the selection of candidates, and campaign and polling micromanagement. We don't know if all of this is enough to secure Mamata's third term. We do know, however, that reverting to old-style election governance by political leaders and cadres will be difficult.

For a long time, Bengal was an exception to many of India's political developments and patterns. It had a one-of-a-kind group race. Political operatives spoke an ideological vocabulary during campaigns. Elections were held without regard for caste or community, and without a large sum of money. Without a doubt, administration was shoddy, but politics reigned supreme. Bengal's exceptionalism could have come to an end with this election. It's also possible that it pushed Bengal and the rest of the nation into American-style governance.

~Authored by Rakshit Gupta