Will the surging number of COVID cases effect the West Bengal poll ?

West Bengal has been grappling a surge in COVID-19 cases, with a 50% test positivity rate reported in Kolkata by the Health Ministry.  

With the eighth and last phase of election held on April 29 in 35 constituencies, the State witnessed the longest Assembly election process for the first time in its poll history.

But the latest rap of the Madras High Court on Election Commission, blaming it for the second wave of COVID-19 in the country, has left many thinking if we indeed did need such an elongated poll process at this crucial time.

The election process was full of the usual sound and fury of how election campaigning was. Rallies, visits by Central or State leaders, public meetings, all went on unabated and restraint seemed less relevant a word despite the COVID situation looming large over the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited West Bengal to attend over 20 rallies and road shows for campaigning of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee campaigned in her wheelchair for 44 days. The main contest is expected between the TMC and the BJP.

During the election campaigning process and immediately after it, the COVID-19 made its presence hugely known with one candidate battling the disease and another paying the ultimate price. Sameer Ghosh, an independent candidate at Malda’s Baisabnagar, succumbed to the virus attack. However, voting is still being held in the constituency, as the rules say polling can be suspended only if a candidate of a recognised political party dies.

Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, the BJP candidate from Englishbazar who tested positive, is admitted to a hospital in Kolkata and so has Babul Supriyo, the Union Minister. Nandita Sinha, the wife of Trinamool Congress candidate Kajal Sinha who died of COVID-19, has filed a murder case against the Election Commission.

In the current scenario, the surging number of positive cases in West Bengal, the debate over the differential pricing of the vaccine, and its unavailability, are expected to have a significant impact on the West Bengal election results.

“The Election Commission had restricted campaigning for the last two phases of the election. Mamata Banerjee has already promised if she comes back to power, vaccination will be free for the public. So, it is understood how it may affect the result of election,” says political analyst and professor Biswanath Chakraborty, who also feels “identity will be the main issue of this election. The religious divisions of politics have been held in West Bengal”.

The Madras High Court’s rap on the EC gets more credence in the context of the Supreme Court (SC) intending to endorse the orders the High Courts (HC) of respective States in the matter. “While the Madras HC has already blamed EC for the surge of cases in India, the SC has declared that they cannot stay silent witnessing the helplessness of people in such a pandemic situation. The apex court supports the orders of the HCs of each States, as they know the situation better. Also, the SC has asked the Centre what they have planned to control the pandemic, according to Article 32,” says Biswajit Dev, a Kolkota based senior lawyer to a news source. 

“The Centre probably did not realise the gravity of the second wave in spite of the WHO’s warnings since January-February. The EC also stretched the phases of election to unprecedented lengths, and it did nothing to curb the campaigns, road shows, meetings, and gatherings by the political parties. A breather, however, was the panel ordering stoppage of public gatherings and campaigning in the last two phases, which also led the Prime Minister to cancel his visit to West Bengal for the last-phase campaigning. Had the EC taken the decision in time, West Bengal would not have stared at such a fatal situation today,” says Kunal Sarkar, a medical practitioner.     

The gravity of the situation has finally woken up the EC, which has declared that there will be no victory rallies and gatherings on the day of counting. As the State now awaits to see how the fates of the candidates in fray shape up, the election has famously gone down in history as the one that sparked a tsunami of a pandemic, proportions of which is getting to be hard to guess. 

Edited by: Raghujit S. Randhawa