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Voting for the new legislative assembly in West Bengal is over and the results will be declared on May 4. But before that, a consensus is being engineered that suggests Mamata Banerjee has already lost the election. Given the clinical manner in which this exercise was orchestrated, such an outcome may appear natural, even inevitable. While not making any guesses about the verdict, what we can do is to look back at the election campaign and try to understand what its conduct portends for the future of Bengal and the Indian Republic.

The election was, ostensibly, a duel between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress. Yet, the Election Commission acted less as a neutral arbiter and more as a logistical auxiliary of the BJP, placing its vast institutional resources at the disposal of the ruling party at the Centre. The Supreme Court, too, by endorsing everything that the Commission did, provided a silent endorsement of this profound imbalance. If the people accept this model of managed democracy, our elections risk devolving into the hollow rituals once seen in the former Soviet Union — where the destination is determined long before the first step is taken.

Sections of the press characterised this as the ‘toughest battle’ for Mamata Banerjee. It was certainly a ‘war’ if one considers the staggering, almost siege-like deployment of the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces. Observers ironically noted that only the Air Force and Navy were not mobilised. This deployment had less to do with the peaceful conduct of the elections and more to intimidate the Trinamool workers........

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