'Don't get dragged into violence'

The day went with clockwork precision for Trinamool in East Midnapore, exactly like Adhikari had ordered at an April 25 meet with workers. "We will finish the game in the last 72 hours," he had said. So, till almost polling day, the opposition did not have enough agents to man around 1,000 booths in the district. The opposition's last-mile efforts meant they somehow ensured agents for most booths in most seats except Nandigram and Khejuri.Nandigram, possibly the most difficult terrain for the CPM now, still had 200 opposition agent-less booths. But, barring Nandigram and Khejuri, many East Midnapore seats - Mahishadal, Chandipur, Egra, Panskura East, Nandakumar and Contai North - saw a spirited opposition fightback.
That the police chose not to be "bhitu" also helped. Both the state cops and the central forces were active in East Midnapore, arresting 30 people and ensuring no major incident of violence.
But Adhikari's counterparts in Cooch Behar seemed not to have learnt from the "proactive nature of the central forces". Two key contestants, Dinhata Forward Bloc MLA-turned-Trinamool candidate Udayan Guha and Natabari Trinamool MLA Rabindranath Ghosh, lost their cool and had FIRs registered against them.
Guha ventured too close to the EVM at booth 123 of Dinhata and was seen directing people to vote. And Ghosh paid for allegedly breaking the model code of conduct several times. He also threatened poll officials: " Apnar naam ki, kothay chakri koren (What's your name, where do you work)?" When the official said he worked in a primary school, Ghosh threatened him: " Tahole to aro subidhe holo (Then it will be even easier to take care of you)."
Party insiders admitted the pinch-hitting efforts on polling day also had to do with the infighting in the district. CM's s staying back in North Bengal, apparently, had also to do with this. Her instruction to the party's district core committee - that they needed to deliver to give the party a comfortable majority and go beyond the six (of the nine) seats the party now held - meant added pressure.
State CPM secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra chose to gloss over these incidents. "Thursday's last phase of polling was peaceful barring in six-seven seats and the jote will have enough for a majority in the next assembly," he said.
But even Mishra realises that the fortnight between now and May 19, when the outcome would be known, will be tense. He asked opposition supporters not to get provoked or dragged into unnecessary violence "for the next fortnight". But "deliberate attacks would be met with mass resistance", he did not forget to add.
(With inputs from Zeeshan Jawed, Suman Mandal, Jayanta Gupta, Pinak Priya Bhattacharya, Saibal Gupta)