CNN-IBN report starts debate on rigging

Naihati, West Bengal: The CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team's exposure of how the Left Front’s rigs polls in West Bengal has had impact. The Trinamool Congress has demanded that a government officer’s report, which explains the 'scientific rigging' in detail, be made public.

Afzal Amanullah, a Bihar cadre IAS officer, submitted the report after the Parliamentary Elections in 2004. The report, a copy of which is with CNN-IBN, has been kept under wraps because of its controversial content.

The report itself hasn't improved things though. Senior state police officers, who didn't want to be named, told CNN-IBN that they have intelligence alerts that the CPM will rig the Assembly polls.

That's possible if what the CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team found in Naihati is true. Naihati is the hometown of Bankim Chandra, who wrote Vande Mataram, India’s national song. Today it's a showcase for CPM’s scientific rigging.

Many people in Naihati have not voted for years because they fear for their safety. Seven years ago, Vandana Das Roy and her family were identified as people who don’t support the CPM. Roy has never voted since then because she doesn’t want put her family at risk. "We have been identified as people who will not vote for CPM. That is why they harass us," alleges Roy.

Nirmala Mandal, another resident, says, “Those who refuse to vote for CPM, either their names are removed from the voting list or they are chased out of the voting centre.”

Intimidating voters is a legal offence, but in Bengal it is a part of scientific rigging. “They come in a group, they meet people and tell us: ‘we know whom you voted for and when.’ It’s through all sorts of indecent and undemocratic methods that they make victory a cakewalk. People know that they will win by hook or crook,” says Naihati resident Professor A R Mitra.

CPM MLA Ranjit Kundu is sure that he will get votes from Naihati this election too. Roy, Mandal and Mitra know how and why.

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