Police check motorcycles with party flags on the Cooch Behar-Dinhata road. (Main Uddin Chisti)

Dinhata (Cooch Behar), May 18: Residents who did not want to mar the “festive spirit” coupled with party leaders determined to take credit for clash-free polls today voted out the threat of violence that till the last day of campaigning had been looming large over the subdivision.

The district leadership of the CPM said instructions passed on to workers and constant monitoring of the situation were the main contributors to the normality that prevailed.

While poll-related clashes claimed several lives in some south Bengal districts where elections were held today, Dinhata turned out to be peaceful with no major incident reported till the evening.

“We had specifically asked our workers to be calm and not to respond to any instigation,” said Benubadal Chakraborty, a district secretariat member of the CPM in Dinhata.

Chances of flare-ups had always remained after the incidents in south Bengal, Chakraborty claimed. “But the chief minister had sent a message that there should be no confrontation between Left Front partners in the last phase of the polls. We in turn circulated this message to the grassroots workers. It is a pity that there was no electoral understanding with our allies but after the results are declared we will definitely work towards rebuilding the Front,” Chakraborty said.

Manira Chisti, a Forward Bloc candidate pitted against the CPM in Dinhata for a zilla parishad seat, believes that the credit lies with the voters. “The underlying tension was there but thanks to the peace-people loving people, the voting process was without any form of undesirable incident,” said Chisti.

For the Bloc, which holds the CPM responsible for the death of five of its supporters in the February 5 police firing, the shadow is there to stay. But the change in stance was noticeable in the Bloc top brass too.

“The on duty policemen are having paan and smoking with the CPM workers,” complained a Bloc supporter over the phone to district secretary Udayan Guha, who was seated at the party office here this morning. “Don’t get excited. Rather, you invite the policemen for a cup of tea,” Guha replied.

“This is our way of telling our supporters not to lose temper,” Guha said later. “But don’t make a mistake, not a single Bloc supporter is ready to spare the CPM. It is only that we have asked them to remain calm.”

For the voters, clashes spoil the fun. “Panchayat election is like a festival,” said Kamal Sarkar, a resident of Putimari in Dinhata. “We don’t want violence to mar the festivity.”