At least five deaths have been reported from different parts of West Bengal since results of the assembly election were declared on Monday, 4 May. The latest casualty is BJP leader and a front runner for the chief minister’s post Suvendu Adhikari’s executive assistant, who was shot dead around 10.20 pm on Wednesday while returning home to Barasat in North 24-Parganas. TMC has claimed three of its workers were killed in the first 48 hours after the counting.

On Wednesday, DGP Siddh Nath Gupta briefed the media and confirmed that a total of 200 FIRs had been registered regarding post-poll incidents, leading to the arrest of 433 individuals.

“Since 4 May, after the announcement of results, there have been incidents of violence, including threats, assaults, and intimidation. We have detained more than 1,100 people under preventive measures,” he said, adding that there have been reports of violence and assault since Wednesday morning.

Gupta confirmed two deaths related to post-poll violence – one at Nanoor and another at New Town, Rajarhat on the outskirts of Kolkata. “We are investigating both cases. We have been able to arrest those involved in these two murders,” he said.

Responding to allegations made by Trinamool Congress that BJP workers had unleashed the violence, BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya had said that internal squabbles within TMC were responsible for the violence. Trinamool workers were misusing BJP’s flags, he alleged, while engaging in violence. “TMC is attacking TMC…," he was quoted as saying.

There are indications that a section of TMC workers, out of fear or otherwise, have overnight changed colours and switched their loyalty. Visuals of policemen and state government employees dancing while shouting slogans of Jai Shri Ram have been circulating.

A state government employee, a Left Front supporter, confided that he had been advised by colleagues to lie low and shout JSR slogans in order to escape attention to his political affiliation. Doubts are also being expressed over the possibility of people settling personal scores and local business rivals using the turmoil after the election to vandalise property of competitors.

However, the role of the CAPF too has come under increasing scrutiny as visuals of the CAPF standing by while mobs resort to violence have also been circulating. The armed troops seem to be under instructions not to intervene.

With the Election Commission having sidelined local police in the run up to the elections, the authority of the police appears to have collapsed. This would explain the use of a bulldozer to demolish a TMC office outside the Hogg market known as the New Market in central Kolkata, a stone’s throw from the police headquarters.

Several incidents of violence and vandalism have been recorded in the state over the last three days. Some of them are the following:

• Several youths scaled a decorative gateway arch of Masjid Bari Road in Barasat’s Nabapally area, broke off the letterings, and replaced them with a hoarding reading “Netaji Pally”

• A park named Siraj Udyan in Champadali, Barasat, was also ‘renamed’ as Shibaji Udyan

• Saffron-clad BJP workers approached a biryani shop located next to a temple in Bongaon, North 24 Parganas, and asked the staff to move the shop elsewhere

• BJP workers stormed into and vandalised the Lalbagh Eidgah in Murshidabad. In a video circulating online, saffron-clad workers can be seen aggressively breaking a tin barricade and forcing their way into the field amid chants of “Jai Shi Ram”

• Shops of Muslim fruit vendors in Uluberia were targeted Muslim-owned shops were vandalised.

• In Dinhata, a ‘Bengal Taj Mahal selfie point’ was vandalised & burnt by a mob chanting “Tel lagake Babur ka, Naam mitado Babur ka”

• At Jiaganj in north Bengal, a statue of Lenin was broken and dislodged

• Several TMC leaders, workers and outgoing ministers were heckled, manhandled and thrashed in different parts of the state

• In a free-for-all, party offices of the TMC across the state are being taken over by other parties, including non-BJP parties.

Police observers deployed by the Election Commission in West Bengal are courting controversy by threatening voters even as the Election Commission issued a new list of ‘trouble makers’ on Monday, 27 April with thousands of names of people associated with Trinamool Congress across 142 constituencies where polling is due on Wednesday. The ECI circulated the list seeking preventative action/detention, citing the Calcutta High Court order that had stayed its earlier advisory on ‘trouble makers’ with the rider that action could be taken if an offence is committed by the listed people.

Prime minister Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah left the state after whirlwind campaigning with the PM promising to return for the swearing-in of a BJP government and the home minister reassuring that central forces will remain in Bengal for 60 days after the polls. The home minister’s assurance, complained Trinamool Congress, is designed to assure immunity to ‘goondas’ associated with the BJP and cited the attack on Trinamool candidate Mitali Bag on Friday. Shah’s promise could also demoralise BJP’s own voters during the second phase of polling as it is seen as an admission that BJP would fail to form the government, point out observers.

Meanwhile, police observers deployed in the state, IPS officers from BJP-ruled states, are courting controversy. Trinamool Congress had earlier circulated CCTV footage of one of the observers meeting the BJP candidate in the lobby of a hotel in Diamond Harbour. At least two other IPS officers, one from UP and the other from Odisha, have been caught on camera threatening Trinamool workers, advising them to stay at home on the polling day.  

“Jahangir ki ghar wale bhi khade hai, usko bata dena kaide se — yeh baar baar jo khabar aa raha hai ke Jahangir ke log dhamka rahe hain, toh phir achchhe se khabar lenge. Phir baad mein rona aur pachtana mat” (Family members of Jahangir (Trinamool candidate) are also here; tell them straight that if complaints of his workers holding out threats persist, we will take good care of them; they should not regret their action later), says Ajay Pal Sharma, IPS and a police observer posted by the Election Commission in South 24-Pargana district, where polling is due on Wednesday.

“I have served as an Election Observer in three different Lok Sabha elections across different states. The cardinal rule drilled into us was simple: an election observer is the eyes and ears of the Election Commission — but he must keep his mouth shut,” exclaimed a retired IAS officer. Sharma, a controversial police officer from Uttar Pradesh cadre, can be seen surrounded by central para-military troops as he threatens a group of villagers including women.

All India Trinamool Congress went on an overdrive, warning ‘Observers’ to do their duty within the bounds of law.  The party posted on social media that “Yogi Adityanath’s encounter specialist Ajay Pal Sharma is the same man whose badge of honour is a body count from “encounters” and whose real speciality is turning the police uniform into a personal ATM and a tool for personal vendettas”. An SIT, the post claimed, recommended a vigilance probe against Sharma who was booked for criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy, and causing the disappearance of evidence.

In a separate post, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra addressed another IPS officer, Battula Gangadhar of the Odisha cadre posted as observer in Nadia district. “This is not Boudh in Odisha where you can beat up your juniors. Stop forcing police to threaten our workers & ask them to remain indoors. It’s illegal. You will face the music, Moitra posted on X.

A Trinamool Congress spokesperson said in a statement, “During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission deployed 3.4 lakh Central Force personnel, roughly 3,400 companies, across 543 constituencies nationwide. Yet in Bengal alone, for this election, they have deployed 2,400 companies, 2.4 lakh Central Force personnel, along with 95 Police Observers. They are conducting midnight raids, barging into the homes of ordinary citizens and Trinamool Congress workers in the dead of night, terrorising families, intimidating voters, outraging the modesty of women in the absence of their husbands, and not even sparing children”.

Will the Election Commission allow the same liberty to ‘Observers’ when Uttar Pradesh goes to polls in 2027, they asked. Will IPS officers from West Bengal be allowed to threaten Bajrang Dal and RSS workers in Uttar Pradesh, they wondered. And will the deployment of central forces be as extensive there?