The Wire Talks | 'The Election Commission is The Key Player in This Election'
Crucial elections will take place in West Bengal in two phases on April 23 and 29. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has to fight anti-incumbency, because it has been in power since 2011, and the main challenger the Bharatiya Janata Party sees its best opportunity to win the state.
This time, the Special Intensive Revision ordered by the Election Commission has also complicated matters since over 90 lakh voters have been struck off the rolls and between 30 and 34 lakh have appealed their removal.
The Trinamool Congress and other opposition parties have said that the Election Commission is playing a partisan role and helping the BJP.
“The Election commission is the key player in this election. It is the Election Commission that has issued an ultimatum to the Trinamool Congress. It is the Election Commission that is taking the administration in their control,” said veteran journalist Snigdhendu Bhattacharya. In this election, it looks like Gyanesh Kumar has emerged as the face that wants the change to happen in Bengal. So that means Trinamool Congress, which is the main party in West Bengal and the other smaller opposition parties are fighting not the BJP so much as Gyanesh Kumar,” he said, in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.
He said a large number of Muslims have been struck off the rolls, and many Hindus “have suffered the same fate.”
He said the BJP’s strategy is polarisation on religious grounds, but ‘polarisation has reached a saturation point.”
The BJP is feeling confident this time that it will be able to dislodge Mamata Bannerjee, but Bhattacharya doesn’t see that happening.
“As of now, I don’t see any danger for the government,” he said. “But in elections, many things can happen. From polling booth management, to voter management, to EVM management, to counting station management, everything will have a role in the final outcome that we see,” he said.
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