Bengal post pol drama
Lord Tennyson in his poem the brook says “for men may come and men may go but I go on forever”. In the case of elections and life in India there can be a similar analogy “for polls may come and polls may go but life goes on forever”. However, that is in an ideal situation that used to happen days gone. Elections are increasingly becoming high-stakes battles. Blood is being spilled with ease both in the run-up and after the elections with equal ease. Life thus is no longer remaining the same with elections in India. Today we look at a few crucial takes that Bengal elections have left in its wake. A tale of spiking corona, a tussle between state and center, and all the sideshows involved in this tale. The key players in this tale as we will see are the center, the re-elected chief minister, some of her ministers, the CBI, the judiciary, the governor, and in a stellar role of course corona.
Since corona is the star of the show, we start with him. February 26th was when the Election commission declared the poll schedule. The active case count on that day was 3343. On May 15th about a fortnight after the election closed the count stood at 1.32 lakhs. This represents an increase of almost 40 times in this period of elections. Rampant electioneering with huge rallies and roadshows where social distancing went for a toss contributed to a huge surge of the count of active cases. In the hinterland, this was even more pronounced. While the active cases were primarily in the urban centers earlier, this time around districts other than Kolkata saw a surge from 2183 cases to 1.06 lacs on 15th May. This constituted a surge of about 48 times in the same period making it more worrying. Hinterland means lesser medical setup and hence greater risks of mortality. In fact, Bengal has been at a forefront of the surge of covid cases due to the election bandwagon that’s wept through for an 8 phase schedule. With campaigning being somewhat restricted towards the end, some amount of control tried to be wrested but by then the damage had been largely done.
This brings us to our next sideshow and maybe the comic relief of the play our honorable governor Mr. Jagdeep Dhankar. Continuously self-exalting himself as the constitutional head of the state, he is mocked by the people of the state in such a manner that a protesting man ran a herd of sheep in front of his official residence to protest his status. While there has been a history of run-ins between him and the chief minister in the past, his conduct since the election has turned into a mockery of his position. Since the day the election has ended he has been commenting on the need for controlling post-poll violence. While as the constitutional head that seems a very statesman-like position, his focus on this especially on violence directed towards members of one political party seems to make the common man believe the interests of one political party are paramount to him. A statesman doesn’t need to harp on a topic in every communique, his expression once should be enough for concerned people to take notice. It is only if one has diluted one’s stature such that people seem to ignore his opinions that he needs to go on harping on the same point again and again. The result is of course further dilution of his stature. Elections ended on the 29th of April. Our honorable Governor is very twitter friendly and if we take a sample of his tweets for say 10 days from that day i.e 30th of April to 9th of May, he has made a total of 43 tweets of which about 30 were directed towards poll violence. The total poll deaths in this time would not have totalled 100 by then, while the number of covid deaths at the same time was over 100 on a daily basis. The number of tweets about covid by the honorable governor was a humongous figure of 1. Every death is a travesty, but If the constitutional head feels the post-poll violence requires his attention and comment I fail to see why does covid not feature in his priority list at a higher place when the number of deaths there are exponentially higher. The governor subsequently found the need to visit some areas of the state like Sitalkuchi. Nandigram and so on. We saw him on TV being visibly moved by the woes of the bereaved family. His grief was indeed severe, so severe that he couldn’t find the time to visit the medical facilities in the same cities to check on the covid readiness of the areas. It is probably constitutional for the constitutional head to stand by the bereaved of political violence and not of the bereaved of covid deaths. If that be the constitution of the country, isn’t it time we had a look again at its tenets? Just as the beauty of the religion is morphed into something ugly by its pimps, is the sanctity of our constitution being distorted by its interpreters.
The judiciary, CBI, and 4 leaders play out our next sideshow. On the 9th of May, while the assembly was in suspension and not yet reconstituted, the governor accorded permission to prosecute 4 leaders, 2 incumbent ministers one incumbent legislator, and another jaywalking between party lines ex-minister, in a case from 2017. Whether he was constitutionally correct to do that, is a subject matter of discussion. The CBI promptly went ahead and in a gung ho operation arrested all 4 leaders. All hell broke loose with the supporters of these popular leaders, with state government throwing in its might behind them. The trigger-happy CM of Bengal sat in a dharna at the CBI office demanding their release. Since then it has been a continual legal tussle towards the liberty of these 4 leaders. While the law of the land must take its course and is paramount, there is a multitude of questions about this drama. The first question is, in a case pertaining to 2017where the accused have cooperated over the years, why was arrest required when the investigation was complete and the charge sheet was to be presented in court. Once the arrest happened why did the state machinery not repose faith in the judiciary and allow the way of mobs and resorted to dharna, instead of going the legal way to secure the release of these leaders and against the CBI if they found the CBI’s conduct erroneous. The next question rests with the judiciary. The competent lower court of the land approved bail to the four accused as was expected. However, a 2 judge bench of the honorable Kolkata High Court when approached on an urgent basis intervened and put a stay to this order along with accepting a request to transfer the case out of Kolkata. The reason given by the CBI for such request was the unruly behavior of the mob which tantamounted to obstruction of judicial process and deliverance of justice. The possibility of influence of judiciary was also envisaged. The question that poses to the judiciary by putting the said stay is multiple. Isn’t the judiciary accepting by this stay order that its lower courts are subject to influence if they have to put a stay on the said basis? If so, what happens to the hopes of the numerous mango men who come knocking on the doors of the lower courts and spend years if not decades in the hopes of justice, if the court is so vulnerable to influence. The next question that poses to the judiciary in a democracy is if the CBI can wrest such an order at such an hour by means of a simple email and not even a formal process where the accused are properly heard, isn’t it exposing itself towards charges of bias or vulnerability of arm twisting from government authorities. The judiciary took about a week to grant bail to these people, while it deliberated and then pushed the matter to a larger bench, a period of about a week where the liberties of people who were accused and not condemned were put to the sword. That too in the environment of covid when the apex court of the country is advising bail wherever possible to minimize possibilities of infection. Isn’t this an infraction on justice? If this can happen to the mighty and powerful what happens to the minions of the country? If they dare raise their voices. Are we Indians safe, and even our ultimate hope the judiciary which has over the years been the light in the darkest of hour towards upholding civil liberties today, not beyond the influences of the government?
There are more side plots to this continually evolving saga. Bengal continues to be a hotbed, of thoughts ideas maybe dissent. Time the continual judge will decide what the implications of today hold on tomorrow for Bengal and India as a whole
