New Delhi: On the morning of May 6, in the middle of Home Minister Amit Shah’s two-day visit to West Bengal, a BJP worker was found hanging in a North Kolkata locality, leading to a fresh war of words between the saffron camp and Trinamool Congress, and forcing the Union Home minister to make an unscheduled stop at the deceased’s house.
In Bengal, the BJP has been at the receiving end of violence inflicted by ruling TMC workers, with the police accused of being hand in glove with the perpetrators. BJP workers have been killed, the women raped, homes and properties have been burnt down and captured, and thousands forced to flee their villages.
Last year, the Election Commission’s decision to conduct assembly elections in Bengal in eight phases had come under much criticism from Mamata Banerjee. However, the decision was based on a report by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The MHA had said that 693 incidents of violence and 11 deaths were reported during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the state. Even after the elections, where the BJP won a record 18 seats out of 42, as many as 852 cases of political violence were reported from June 1 to December 31, 2019, which led to the deaths of 61 people.
In 2020, the MHA report said, 663 incidents were recorded, in which 57 people were killed. The first week of January 2021 alone saw 23 incidents of violence, leading to two deaths and 43 injuries. During the 2018 panchayat elections, 23 people cutting across political parties were killed in clashes, the report further said.
What does NCRB data say?
While Kerala has witnessed over 200 political murders in the last three decades, with the CPI(M), and lately SDPI, targetting RSS workers, it is nowhere closer to Bengal. As per data by the National Crime Records Bureau, Bengal has been recording 20 political murders every year since 1999. Between 2010 and 2019, it witnessed the highest number of political killings in India at 161, NCRB data shows.
Of the 54 political murders in India in 2018, Bengal alone accounted for 12. The state did not submit data for 2019, due to which NCRB used the previous year’s data in its records – the actual figures are expected to be much higher. This made Bengal the state with highest political killings in two consecutive years.
In 2018, Bihar and Maharashtra followed Bengal with nine and seven political killings. The following year, Bihar and Jharkhand each reported six killings to follow Bengal. In 2020, however, Bengal reported only three political killings.
These numbers have been scoffed at by activists and Opposition leaders who have accused the TMC government of toning down actual figures. The BJP has claimed that over 200 of its workers have been killed in Bengal since 2014, and many of these killings have been passed off as suicides.
When it comes to total incidents of political violence in India, Kerala has topped for three consecutive years, as per NCRB data. The state accounted for 592 out of 1,495 cases in 2018; 495 out of 1,209 incidents in 2019; and 628 out of 1,032 cases in 2020. However, this can also be attributed to better reporting. This year too, Kerala witnessed several murders of activists belonging to BJP-RSS and other outfits.
