Chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Tuesday refrained from revealing the number of phases for the upcoming Bengal Assembly elections and said the matter would be decided only after reviewing law and order and the state machinery’s preparedness.
“The poll phases will depend on the law-and-order preparedness of the state machinery. We will decide it after returning to Delhi, considering the outcome of the full bench meeting,” Kumar told a news conference at a New Town hotel.
When Kumar was asked about the number of phases in the Bengal elections, a reference was made to the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, which had been held on a single day despite the state having 288 seats.
Bengal has 294 Assembly seats.
During the meeting with the full bench of the Election Commission, the BJP, CPM and the Congress demanded that the polls be held in a single phase or at most in two phases, instead of seven or eight phases seen in earlier elections.
Multiple Bengal government officials handling the SIR process and part of the election machinery told The Telegraph in private that it would not be possible for the EC to conduct the polls in eight phases as it did in 2021 because of time constraints.
A source said that although no specific window was required between the day of the election announcement and voting day, the commission typically followed a gap of 30–45 days between the two dates.
“In 2021, the election was announced on February 26 and the eight-phase voting began on March 27. This time it is already late, and if the election is announced early next week, the first phase of voting won’t be held before the third week of April. On the other hand, the term of this government is set to end on May 7. So, there is not enough time to conduct elections in eight phases as was done in 2021,” said a source.
Security personnel patrol a street in Birbhum, ahead of the announcement of the Assembly polls. (PTI picture)
The law and order that the CEC pointed out is likely to be the main concern for the commission because of the background of political violence in Bengal during elections.
However, Kumar has assured that the elections will be free and fair, and without violence and intimidation this time. It is clear from his assurance that ensuring such an election is the prime challenge for the commission, considering the track record of dozens of locations where violence took place in earlier elections.
Political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty believes that regardless of the number of phases, the most important issue for Bengal is the pre-poll “sanitisation” of criminals and the recovery of arms by deploying a sufficient number of central forces with proper utilisation.
“It is quite clear that the elections will be held in fewer phases. However, ensuring free and fair elections means the commission has to free the areas from criminals and recover arms and bombs in their possession. So, the main task of managing law and order lies in the EC’s actions and preparedness before the elections, not on the poll day,” said Chakraborty.
Another issue is that the EC will need a huge deployment of central forces to conduct elections in fewer phases. In 2021, a total of 1,100 companies of the central forces were deployed throughout the eight phases of the election. So, if the commission wants to conduct the polls in a single phase, a similar number of forces would be required at the same time. In case of multiple phases, the EC can mobilise forces from one place to another once the voting is over in a particular area.
“In such cases, the commission can bring in forces from other states along with the available central forces. Already, 480 companies of central forces have reached Bengal and started patrolling in various areas,” saida source.