Some photos from the vernacular newspapers about yesterday's poll in WB; mind you,
the ECI has already declared it peaceful. You may not be able to read but the photos are enough and then you make your own decision how the polling is going on in WB. The news are from ABP by the way, not from some small time, fly by night, news media.
https://www.anandabazar.com/state/lok-s ... l-1.991884
The image in the first report shows the TMC goons barracking and brick pelting on the convoy of BJP candidate. The photo is from one place, there were literally 100s of such incidents, wherever the BJP functionaries went during the polling day. You can imagine the situation in side the booth. As is the norm, no action would be taken, TMC would later proclaim that BJP candidate/functionary were trying to provoke local people with hate speech and the people have acted spontaneously. Even if Central forces/ECI takes any legal action, it would revert back to WB police immediately after election and then they will all go scot-free.
Also if you notice, there are people posted at the back of the action squad to take video of the image. There are 2 functions for such video:
a. in case BJP functionaries and their body guards take any action, use the edited video to go to court and complain about heavy handedness of central forces etc etc .
b. in case BJP functionaries turn tail, edit the video suitably and share on SM etc to create the fear psychosis for BJP supporters in other areas
https://www.anandabazar.com/state/lok-s ... r-1.991887
In the second report shows the car of the press reporters travelling with BJP candidate. This is the norm and not exception. All BJP candidates, their supporters, their bodyguards and even press accompanying them face this on regular basis on the campaign trail.
In fact CISF jawans deputed as bodyguard of the candidate had to fire on the air and one of them were critically injured in the bricks pelted by the goons.
And then WB State Police, supposedly under ECI, had actually tried to detain the CISF body guards for unauthorized firing.
https://www.anandabazar.com/state/lok-s ... l-1.991638
The photo of the situation: the BJP candidate seating inside the police station to take refuge from the TMC goons, her bodyguards had to fire on air to stop them physically lynching the candidate.
She went to the place hearing booth capture, her convoy were attacked. The moment she tried to reach the polling station on foot, the ladies squad of TMC had physically attacked her and started beating.
Her body guards were mostly male and hence not well equipped to handle the situation. They had to fire in air to protect her, there is a photo of that as well.
WB police, as usual, did the minimum to protect her (they also don't want her to die as they will be questioned, their goal is just to break the moral). Once she took shelter in the local police station, she were kept there for hours in the pretext of protection. Mind you, there was one injured CISF jawan with her in the need of medical attention.
In the mean time, get this,
the WB police seized her vehicle, as documents were supposedly not on order!!!
Finally, she left in the car of her bodyguards with the injured jawan. And no, the ordeal was not over. In every road block back to the city hospital, WB police personnel tried to block their car and detain the CISF jawans for unauthorized firing. The CISF commandant had to argue for hours in all the blocks and finally had to go to a police station near the city to record his statement. Only after that, they were allowed to proceed to the hospital and the candidate and the jawan could get medical treatment.
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People in the forum think Central Forces and ECI are all powerful, without having any clue how they can be manipulated by the state ruling party.
If you think the WB police detaining the car of the candidate and trying to detain her bodyguards and in general harassing them, all in the pretext of following ECI rules, is an anomaly, read further on.
Just today, one of the BJP candidates had a seat-in protest in Kolkata against harrasment.
Using the ECI direction of searching car for money to influence voters, WB police had effectively detained his entire convoy for 6 hours on the campaign trail. 3 sets of police team had searched each and everything in the convoy and even after that had asked him to go to police station to sign the statement. On asking question, WB police, in a smug face, showing the ECI directive and openly stating they have video-graphed the entire search so everything is above board. And such is common place, happening regularly. Even a person of the stature of Mukul Roy (he was actually the junior railway minister during UPA2) had to face this regularly in the last couple of weeks.
And the most frustrating part is, this is nothing new, ECI faces this in WB in every election. God knows, why they don't learn anything. The state vote machinery and police combo is much more creative and agile compared to them and run rings around each and every time. How can they shamelessly declare peaceful, free and fair election is something no sane person can fathom.