March 1: On May 13, 1648, the construction of Delhi’s Red Fort was completed. On May 13, 2011, Bengal will know if its Red Fort will be brought down or not.

Bengal will go to its longest-ever elections from April 18, winding its way through six phases of voting that will end on May 10. On Friday the 13th, counting will be held to answer the question if Mamata Banerjee has been able to dislodge one of the world’s most enduring regimes.

Calcutta will vote in Phase III on April 27, a Wednesday.

By the time Bengal marches to the polling stations, elections in four other states — Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry — will be over. But all the five states will have to wait for May the 13th to know who will rule them next.

Tamil Nadu, where the number of voters is only 18 per cent less than the 5.6 crore in Bengal, will wrap up the voting in one day. Bengal will do so in six days spread over nearly a month — a testimony to the Maoist insurgency in the eastern state and the political bloodshed that has stained the run-up to the elections.

“We have finalised the dates taking into account the ground realities and the prevailing law-and-order situation. There are some disturbed areas,” chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi said.

Until now, the longest election the state has had was in five phases — both the Lok Sabha poll of 2009 and the last Assembly race of 2006 had such a pentagonal schedule.

In contrast, the 1977 Assembly elections that brought the Left to power were held in a single phase. But the largely peaceful polls in Bihar, which were held in six phases last year, seem to have convinced the commission about the policing advantages of a long process.

If the CPM that champions an ideology finetuned in Europe follows the Gregorian calendar, the party’s avowed aversion to superstition will come in handy because some consider Friday the 13th — the counting day — unlucky.

But Mamata Banerjee chose to look at the brighter spot in the home-grown almanac and quoted Rabindranath Tagore.

“Elections will be held in the month of Baisakh, the beginning of the Bengali new year. The victory ride of the new will start. Tumi nabo nabo rupe esho prane (May you come into my life in ever new forms),” a beaming Mamata said at her Kalighat residence, welcoming the Election Commission’s schedule.

The CPM also welcomed the six-phase polls but did not show poetic exuberance. “We are prepared. It’s fine,” CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said in Delhi, asked about the long polling schedule.

“If the commission thinks that a six-phase election is required here, so be it,” CPM state secretary Biman Bose said in Calcutta.

However, less than half-an-hour before the model code of conduct kicked in, the CPM-led government displayed alacrity to announce a 2 per cent quota in government jobs for sportspersons. Mamata had announced a sports cadre in the railway budget.

Home minister P. Chidambaram said nearly 10,000 paramilitary personnel would be sent to Bengal, where law and order “continues to be unsatisfactory”. He went a step further to say: “I hope she (Mamata) comes to power.”

This election will see some firsts: overseas Indians can exercise their franchise in person and poll officials, not political activists, will distribute voter slips.