Eyes on Maoist hotbed as West Bengal goes to polls on Monday

Eighteen seats in Maoist-affected areas in West Bengal will go to polls on Monday in the first of the six-phase elections.

One hundred and thirty-three candidates will try their luck from the constituencies falling under the districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura.

Out of these, 13 have been roughly classified as Left Wing Extremism-affected areas by the Election Commission where voting will end early by 4 pm due to security reasons.

In the remaining five constituencies of Purulia, Manbazar, Kashipur, Para and Raghunathpur voting will go on for two hours extra till 6 pm.

The ruling Trinamool Congress has been highlighting how peace has returned in the Maoist-hotbed Junglemahal area. It finds a mention even in the ‘Trinamool anthem’ song in Bengali which is being played across TV channels, radio stations and even through social media.

The last 2011 assembly polls, which ended the 34-year-long rule of the Left, had Trinamool and Congress on the same side. The Congress, which broke its alliance later on, has forged an alliance with the Left.

The Left-Congress alliance has been a subject of mockery for both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called this alliance an “unholy” one while Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who attended an election rally in Kharagpur town, mocked at it saying “dosti (friendship) in Bengal and kushti (wrestling) in Kerala”.

In poll rallies and meetings, opposition parties have been harping upon major issues like the Saradha chit-fund scam in which thousands of investors from all over the state lost their hard-earned savings and the recent Narada sting operation which purportedly showed TMC leaders accepting bribe, and “lack of industrialisation” in the state.

The ‘Ma Maati Manush’ government led by Banerjee is however, confident of retaining power on the basis of all-round development work and the success of its

developmental schemes like the ‘Kanyashree’ in the state during their five-year rule, ruling party leaders and supporters insist.

All the three -- Trinamool, Left-Congress alliance and BJP -- have fielded candidates from all 18 seats in the first phase.

Gobordhan Bagdi is the only one fighting on two seats of Para and Raghunathpur on a JMM ticket.

Total number of voters in the constituencies are a little over 40 lakh (40,09,171) out of which 20,47,202 are males.

The third gender category list shows only a handful of 16 voters.

There are total 4,945 polling stations out of which 1,962 have been classified as critical ones by the Election Commission.

Voter Verifiable Audit Trails are being done in 562 polling stations.

To monitor the polling process, 14 general observers and 676 micro observers will be the part of the 22,000-strong team of polling personnel.

High-tech monitoring will be done through digital cameras, video cameras, CCTVs and live webcasting.

In all Left-wing extremism affected polling stations, the EC has decided to deploy a minimum of one section of force, which has around 10 security personnel.

There will be a minimum of three security layers including sector forces and a quick response team.

Central forces will be present in every polling booth and depending on the requirement the deployment of forces can increase.

For aerial surveillance, two helicopters will conduct regular sorties and inform forces on the ground if they notice any undesirable activity.