Listen to this article:

We are just hours away from the anxiously awaited results of the most keenly watched state election in India in the recent past – that of West Bengal. But this is not one of many intelligent and compelling guesstimates to keep hyper-excited political participants and their near-insane followers pass these tense moments. This piece is more of a record of the processes followed to ensure the disenfranchisement of millions of voters – unprecedented in the annals of India’s electoral history.

And yet the nation does not appear really bothered. We recall how crores of hapless citizens have been traumatised (many remain so) and were made to grovel before authorised minions of the election commission. They stood in the blazing summer heat, just to prove that they do exist, however dystopian that is. Ever since the Hindu Hriday Samrat of Gujarat 2002 arrived in Delhi in May 2014 in his crony’s airplane, he has taken over all constitutional and watchdog bodies – mainly by planting his amoral henchmen as heads, to weaponise them and protect his own interests.

The 2025-26 state elections, however, mark the arrival of a ruthless warlord with the cloak of a constitutional post and his new toolkit, SIR, that has wreaked havoc among voters to carry out his Master’s political agenda.

We need to understand this new toolkit as it is sure to be applied all over the republic. This matters more than who will win in Bengal though there is a possible result that could reaffirm that the state knows how to give it back. Even so, there is little chance for the state returning to its traditional post-Renaissance caste-free liberalism and rationality – irrespective of who wins. Some two centuries after Raja Rammohun began his battle, obscurantists may have staged a dreadful comeback. The more chilling fear is that the schism in Bengal may soon lead to considerable violence after election results are announced.

Both sides are so jubilant that they have won that when reality hits any one on the nose, its millions may be out on the streets, unable to accept “stolen elections”. In fact, a hung house may actually control law and order more effectively.

In relative hindsight, it becomes increasingly clear that the Election Commission was merely an accomplice in a meticulously-planned and mercilessly executed operation to seize Fort Bengal. The accompanying level of hate, rage and fury was last seen in Aurangzeb’s Deccan venture. The audaciousness and craftiness of the gameplan makes it rather obvious that it was all hatched by some the best legal and strategic brains, east of Aden – or maybe to its west too.

For this, an unusually unscrupulous bureaucrat was selected who came with a bonus trait of crass misbehaviour, where the opposition was concerned. This smashed the adage that civil servants, however bad, are simply incapable of uncivil coarse uncouth conduct vis-à-vis the........

© The Wire