EC action in West Bengal: Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

The present action of EC comes just four days before the campaign for West Bengal Election 2021 was to end.

The Election Commission of India (ECI), on April 22, banned all road shows and public meetings of over 500 people in West Bengal, soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called off his poll campaign in the state. But, the state COVID-19 numbers reviewed by News18 show the ECs action is a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Sample this: on the day EC took the said action, West Bengal reported a high of 11,948 cases with 56 deaths, taking the total number of active cases to 68,798 at a daily positivity rate of an alarming 22.5 percent, a rate which rivals many worst-affected states like Maharashtra. These figures have grown phenomenally in the last six days since April 16 when EC took its last action of banning all campaigning between 7 PM and 10 AM and extended the silence period for the rest of the phases to 72 hours. On April 16, the state reported 6,910 fresh cases, 26 deaths and 41,047 total active cases at a test positivity rate of 17 percent. The figures today are roughly 75 percent up since.

ECI in its order on April 22 said it had noted with anguish that many political parties/candidates were still not adhering to prescribed safety norms during the public gatherings without naming anyone in particular.

In the last six days, CM Mamata Banerjee did 20 rallies and a road show, Union Home Minister Amit Shah did nearly a dozen rallies and road shows while state BJP President Dilip Ghosh did over 15 rallies and road shows. Finally, on April 22, after the EC put a limit on 500 people for a rally, Banerjee cancelled all her campaign and all her election meetings, and said she would opt for virtual campaigns while the BJP said the programmes of all its senior leaders would be rescheduled.

Incidentally, Ghosh had five roads scheduled earlier for April 23 while BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari had four road shows planned for the day.

Cases have risen four times since EC’s ‘Warning’ on April 9

The present action of EC comes just four days before the campaign was to end. EC’s earlier intervention in Bengal was on April 9 when it gave a “strict warning” that it won’t hesitate to ban rallies if COVID-19 guidelines were not followed. State health records show that on April 9, the state was reporting 3,648 daily cases at a 10 percent test positivity rate with total active cases standing at 18,603. The figures today, at 11,948 daily cases and 68,978 active cases, are four times those levels.

A former senior EC official told News18, speaking on the condition of anonymity, that the poll body should have acted much earlier after it was apparent to all that no COVID-19 norms were being followed in rallies or road shows, as per EC’s standing instructions since the Bihar elections.

Incidentally, the EC has still not banned public meetings as long as they are up to 500 persons, which is intriguingly the same parameter that the BJP had specified for its own rallies three days ago. For the record, this is the first time that the EC has put such a cap as EC’s guidelines for the Bihar elections issued last year never put any cap on the number of people who could be present in a rally but only said that social distancing norms of do gaz doori must be followed during rallies. For the record, West Bengal reported only 812 cases on March 27 when votes were cast in the state in the first phase and active cases then stood at 4,608 with the test positivity rate standing at only 3 percent.

Three candidates have died due to COVID-19 during the West Bengal polls while at least half a dozen candidates have contracted COVID-19 apart from star campaigners like Adhir Ranjan Choudhary and Manoj Tiwari.

Three candidates have died due to COVID

-19 during the West Bengal polls

The last two phases of the West Bengal elections comprise 71 seats, with the big chunk of seats in Muslim-dominated districts of Murshidabad (22 seats), Malda (12 seats) and urban seats of Kolkata (11 seats). The Trinamool Congress is banking in a big way on these seats as it won only five seats in Murshidabad and Malda in 2016 assembly elections while it did win all 11 seats in Kolkata.

The TMC overall won 32 out of the 71 seats in the last two phases in 2016 elections and is looking at better its performance now. The BJP has also been aiming at making inroads into all these three districts and PM Modi will do a virtual rally on Friday for voters of the state, especially Malda, Murshidabad, Kolkata and Rabindranath Tagore’s land of Bolpur.