People's Democracy

BENGAL ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

LF Calls Upon Workers To Stride

Boldly Ahead With Propaganda Work

CPI(M) candidate along with Party workers going house-to-house as part of election campaign

B Prasant

MEETING in the early afternoon of April 10, 2006, the Bengal Left Front has called upon the workers everywhere in the state to make bold strides in spreading LF’s political message as the Front’s election campaign becomes wider and deeper.

Presided over by the Bengal Left Front chairman Biman Basu and attended among others by CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the Left Front meeting was of the firm view that as the assembly elections would draw closer, the opposition and their mentors would step up the cut-and-thrust manoeuvrings of misdemeanour, defame, and lie.

The task for the LF workers would be to withstand the assault, to protest against the villainy but never to be provoked by the constancy of political sniping, however unfair and unpleasant the circumstances would get.

The LF workers must play a leading and conscious role in making the assembly polls peaceful and devoid of disturbance. 

The LF meeting was the first such occasion after the passing away of the CPI(M) state secretary, Comrade Anil Biswas.  The meeting remembered and paid homage to the memory of the CPI(M) stalwart.

A brief review of the electoral campaign so far conducted revealed important and encouraging facets of information.  The election campaign has been more positive than ever before for the Left Front.  All the LF candidates are traversing their constituencies making booth-based approaches all the while. It has been a veritably positive response all the way from the electorate all over Bengal to the LF election campaign.

Biman Basu communicated to the Left Front workers not to deviate from the rules and regulations being put in force by the Election Commission. The regulations include details of how camp offices of a political party would have to be fixed.   The camp would have three sides open and would contain two chairs and one table. It would also sport but a single banner. The set up is one of the novel things that have come up this year as part of the electoral and election-related regulations.

Later, talking to the media, Biman Basu expressed his firm belief that the Left Front had complete trust in the high level of political consciousness of the people of Bengal who would vote for those ‘who have looked to the interests of the people, who have restored democratic norms in the state, and who have worked tirelessly to ensure that the electoral process was strengthened all the way in the entire state.’

Answering a question Biman Basu expressed surprise at the manner in which the Trinamul Congress chieftain Mamata Banerjee would repeatedly refer to the ‘fact of the Election Commission being in favour of us.’  "We are not quite aware of the reasons why she would call the Election commission as ours when we all know that the EC is an independent and impartial body", said Basu.

TOWARDS A FREE-AND-FAIR ELECTIONS

For the poll process in Bengal to be free-and-fair, and peaceful, the Election Commission, too, must play a big role.  Biman Basu said this while referring to the odd sight of Trinamul Congress candidate accompanying the police while the latter searched the Keshpur CPI(M) office in Midnapore West in the small hours of the night — and ended up with a ‘nil’ seizure list.

Biman Basu also spoke about the onerous presence of Jharkhand Party satraps when the police searched the house of Kalipada Murmu of the CPI(M) at Dumurgeria in Lalgarh in the same district.  The Election Commission must not only be impartial, said Biman Basu, but it must also appear to be impartial.

Biman Basu also expressed his anguish as well as anxiety at the manner in which tens of thousands of names of genuine voters were being unceremoniously deleted.  Regrettably, as the Bengal CPI(M) has already communicated to the Election Commission, the names were deleted without offering the genuine voters the benefit of hearing them out.

The process of deletion – and the Bengal CPI(M) has always stood for the deletion of names of dead and shifted voters – has come to such a pass that the CPI(M) sitting MP Prasanta Pradhan was asked to show cause why his name should not be deleted.  More recently, Maimoona Mollah, the wife of CPI(M) MP Hannan Mollah and AIDWA functionary was written to by the Election Commission about striking her name off the voters’ list on grounds of non-residence.

The continuing drive by the Election Commission to strike out the names of genuine voters across Bengal has served to deprive them of their democratic right to exercise their franchise.  The Bengal CPI(M) has already written to the Election Commission drawing its attention to these efforts.

Biman Basu came up with a selection of cases (out of thousands of other such instances) where names of genuine voters have been deleted.  These can be tabulated as follows:

Name of Constituency              Number of Genuine Voters with Names Deleted

1.                  161-Bally                                 273

2.                  162-Howrah North                347

3.                  164-Howrah South                409

4.                  165-Shibpur                            676

5.                  166-Domjur                            106

6.                  167-Jagatballavpur                 02

7.                  169-Sankrail                             66

8.                  170-Uluberia North                25

9.                  189-Uttarpara                        198

10.                 291-Bankura                           13

11.                223-Midnapore                       05

12.                220-Garbeta East                     20

13.                216-Sabang                               20

14.                71-Nakashipara                       04

15.                 74-Krisjnagunj (SC)                67

16.                 75-Krishnagar East               157

17.                 79-Hanskhali                           17

18.                 82-Chakdaha                           12