Bihar model for Bengal elections-Bihar showed the way, Bengal will follow.-Calcutta, Jan. 9/11

Bihar model for Bengal elections

MEGHDEEP BHATTACHARYYA

Calcutta, Jan. 9: Bihar showed the way, Bengal will follow.

Chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi today said the poll panel would “apply” the “Bihar model” to ensure “peaceful, free and fair” elections in Bengal as he wrapped up a tour of the state with the full bench of the commission.

Quraishi, who met district police chiefs and district magistrates during his two-day trip, also said the commission was “extremely concerned about the law-and-order situation in Bengal”.

The comment came days after armed CPM cadres opened fire in troubled West Midnapore, killing seven people as political violence exploded in the state.

Quraishi said the 2010 model followed during elections in Maoist-hit Bihar, where central forces kept vigil at over 90 per cent booths on polling day, was “very” successful. “We will apply the same model for the Bengal Assembly polls this year,” he told The Telegraph on the sidelines of a seminar on electoral reforms.

Commission officials were tight-lipped on the number of phases the panel planned to conduct the polls, but sources hinted Bengal could see at least a six-phase ballot. “If they propose six phases for 243 Assembly seats in Bihar, it has to be at least six phases in Bengal for its 294 seats,” said a source.

Asked about the possibility of early elections, Quraishi said polls wouldn’t be held before May.

Sources said escalating violence in Bengal, especially in Maoist-hit Jungle Mahal, had prompted the panel to draw parallels with Bihar. In his letter to Union home minister P. Chidambaram, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee too had admitted that over 100 people had been killed in political clashes in the state last year (till December 15).

CPM veteran Mohammad Salim voiced doubts about the Bihar parallel, but said his party would “welcome” the 2010 model if the commission wanted to replicate it. “We also want free, fair and peaceful polls,” he added.

Trinamul MP Kalyan Banerjee said the Bihar model was a “must” while party chief Mamata Banerjee wanted lesser involvement of the state in the run-up. “Why will the commission have to depend on the blacklisted government?” she said at the seminar.

Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee and Veerappa Moily were on the dais when Mamata spoke.

“We want at least 600 companies of central forces and central force personnel at every booth,” said a state official. In 2006, some 600 companies of central forces had criss-crossed the state during the polls.

An official said technology would be used extensively, and the commission’s plans included aerial surveillance and webcast of voting from sensitive booths.
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