Violence synonymous with West Bengal polls

Violence is not new to any election in West Bengal. Figures submitted to the Supreme Court by the West Bengal government recently have indicated that the state registered 1,313 criminal cases during 2014 Lok Sabha elections and 1,217 cases in 2016 Assembly polls. Though five years have elapsed, the 2014 cases have yielded a scant seven convictions.

Responding to a query put by the Court on how cases registered during the elections get followed-up by the respective states, each state was directed by the Court to file response. The Court order required details of unaccounted cash seized during these elections, the criminal cases lodged during the polls, and the number of cases that ended up in either conviction or acquittal.

The West Bengal government informed the Court on May 10 that during the 2014 elections, 359 cases were registered under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) which were also an electoral malpractice under the Representation of People's (RP) Act. A total of 921 cases involved offences purely under the IPC while seven cases got registered under the RP Act as electoral offences. There were 25 cases of attempt to murder, adding up to a total of 1,313 cases. Of these, the state claimed that in 985 cases, trial is pending after charge-sheet has been filed while in 176 cases, the police filed closure report.

Interestingly, at the pan-India level, West Bengal was the second-most notorious state to have recorded a high number of criminal cases during 2014 polls. At the top of the state tally was Andhra Pradesh which recorded 2,288 criminal cases in 2014. During this year, the assembly elections to Andhra Pradesh were held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections.

If one is to see how West Bengal fared during its own Assembly elections in 2016, it was a repeat of 2014 when it came to election-related violence. Under the IPC and RP Act combined cases, 399 FIRs were registered. There were 802 cases under IPC offences and another 13 cases under attempt to murder. Three cases alone were of Model Code violations under RP Act. A little over 1000 cases are still pending trial while 136 cases have been closed.