State Election Commission rules broken during West Bengal panchayat polls: Officer

"I arrived a night before the election and the first advice my sector officer gave me was to take it easy because it was a bordering area with Bangladesh and if they took me away across the border, he would not be able to do anything," said a presiding officer, a Central government employee, who was on duty in a bordering area of North 24 Parganas during the recently-concluded panchayat election on May 14, on condition of anonymity.

Describing himself as a prisoner of democracy he said that rules set by the State Election Commission were broken at every step and no one seemed to be bothered.

"There was no mobile phone network and I could not send an SMS to the sector officer informing him about the beginning of the poll process so it meant there was no official record that polling began at 7 am. Earlier, there used to be a messenger on cycle but there was no such provision this time," he added.

He also said that unlike the Central force used last time, Civic Volunteers who were used for maintaining law and order were more like 'authorised weapons of the state'. "They did absolutely nothing to stop booth capturing. In effect, they were helping bogus voters for the ruling regime. The poll process was supposed to end at 5 pm and at 4.45 pm I was supposed to distribute tokens among the remaining voters. Since the crowd was huge, I anticipated trouble and called the sector officer asking for police. In as many words he said, 'There are no police in the entire West Bengal. Don't give slips. Let it continue'. As a result, the poll process continued till 9.45 pm. The non-issue of tokens is again a violation of SEC norm," he said.

Another state government employee said, as opposed to the rule that a voter can be accompanied by a family member only if he is physically unable to make it to the polling station, in the village of South 24 Parganas, nearly everyone was accompanied by someone. "They came with excuses such as, 'My mother cannot see', 'my father is invalid'. One said 'My wife is newly-married and doesn't know whom to vote for'. Surprisingly, the polling agents of none of the Opposition parties objected to it and we had to sit there quietly," he said.

The harrowing experience continued even during the counting day on May 17. Officers complained that party workers were supposed to maintain a distance from the counting area which was not adhered to. "There was an occasion when a CPI(M) candidate of a Gram Panchayat had won by one vote. When that came to the notice of one of the TMC local leaders who was present there, in a stern voice he requested, 'Please put two rejected votes in favour of TMC'. I had no option but to oblige," he said.

SEC officials admitted that there could have been few such activities. "There can always be one or two bad elements out of 100, but in any case, we didn't receive any such complaints," said SEC secretary Nilanjan Shandilya.