State violence ‘history’

New Delhi, Feb 4: Chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi today said the poll panel’s proactive approach in Bengal had been prompted by the state’s “history of violence” and “bitter political rivalry”.

“The Bengal elections are a huge challenge for us. The state has a history of violence, which is a matter of concern for us,” he said at an interactive session of the Indian Women’s Press Corps in Delhi.

He said that like the other three poll-bound states, Bengal too had “issues specific to it”. Quraishi said the commission was in the process of “vulnerability mapping” at the booth level in Bengal.

Asked about the importance of the observer team — led by Bihar chief electoral officer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh and including five IPS officers — that was sent to Bengal last month, Quraishi said: “The committee has submitted its report. But we receive inputs from various sources, including our observers.”

He chief said another observer team would be sent to the state as the “Left has complained that we had left out certain areas from our survey”. He said the commission wanted “the truth, the reality, and we will take all steps to get it”.

Quraishi laughed away suggestions that political considerations prompt the commission to be “slightly more proactive” in states where Opposition parties (not the Congress and its allies at the Centre) are in power.

He said that in Bengal, the commission’s challenges were the “intense political rivalry” and “armed struggle”.

Quraishi said the commission’s “worries” in Assam were the border issue and militancy while in Tamil Nadu the concerns were intense political rivalry and money power. He said that in Kerala, the poll panel’s concern was how to get the state’s substantial NRI population to exercise their voting rights.

Elaborating on the panel’s plan to ensure peaceful and fair polling in the Maoist-affected regions of Bengal, Quraishi said the commission would relocate booths to safer areas, reduce voting hours to allow poll personnel to shift to safer places before sundown and ensure that booths are set up in clusters. He said the commission would ensure that security was tight and also gather intelligence on candidates. He said choppers could be pressed into service if forces needed to be mobilised.

He said the commission had found out that in Bengal, “fathers don’t get their daughters enrolled as voters as it would reveal their true ages” and hamper their marriage prospects.
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