THE fight to exercise the right to vote has assumed a new dimension in West Bengal. In the first phase, large number of booths were captured particularly in Cooch Behar. TMC armed gangs had chased away voters and opposition polling agents from the polling booths in many areas of the constituency. The token presence of central para military forces was of no use. In the second phase, in Raiganj, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, there was large scale resistance of the people. In Raiganj, for example, citizens formed human chain days before the polling demanding free and fair voting. The chain was led by, among others, Rani Kar,      92-year old brave widow of freedom fighter Jatindra Nath Kar, who demanded appropriate security for voters. Raiganj faced widespread rigging in both the panchayat and municipal elections. This year, however, the villagers themselves declared that even if no central security force was available, they would not allow their votes to be looted. Hundreds of people poured in front of booths from the morning and in most cases squarely faced off ruling party miscreants. In Islampur, part of the constituency, CPI(M) candidate Md Salim personally led resistance and forced the TMC armed gang to retreat. His car was damaged by the fleeing troublemakers. CPI(M) demanded re-polling in 28 booths in Raiganj. In the third phase, in Balurghat, Maldaha South and North, Jangipur and Murshidabad, the ruling party miscreants attacked large number of booths. In Balurghat, although they were able to rig nearly 25 booths, in many others they were chased by people. In North Malda, infamous criminals were used by the TMC for booth capturing. While they were successful in some place, they faced strong resistance in many others. In Jangipur and Murshidabad, TMC miscreants looted a number of booths. In Jangipur, at least 22 booths were fully looted. In Jangipur, TMC candidate came with nearly hundred activists in cars to loot votes but were forced to retreat after the villagers chased them away. In Bhagwangola of Murshidabad, Congress activist Tiarul Sheikh was murdered in front of the polling booth. He was brutally attacked with choppers by TMC criminals. The incident happened despite the presence of police forces. In Bhagwangola itself, the villagers came out in numbers and chased away the criminals from many booths. In Jalangi, TMC activists started hurling bombs in Sahebrampur. Villagers came out with sticks and cordoned the entire area to continue the voting process. CPI(M) has demanded re-polling in 54 booths.

After the third phase of polling, CPI(M) leader Rabin Deb expressed anguish to the election commission about the non-performance of central forces. But he noted the growing courage and confidence among people to combat rigging.  

Meanwhile, Left Front has stepped up their campaign with large public meetings and intensive door-to-door campaign. Despite a near complete black-out by mainstream commercial media, Left activists are raising issues of livelihood of the people, questions of defending secularism and democracy. Small group meetings are being held in villages and urban areas apart from interaction with cross sections of people. CPI(M) Polit Bureau members Brinda Karat, Tapan Sen, Manik Sarkar, Hannan Mollah addressed number of public meetings.

One of the major challenges in West Bengal is fighting polarisation on communal lines, attempted by both the BJP and the TMC. Leaders of both the parties are putting up divisive issues in their meetings. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself has raised issues of so-called "appeasement politics" while Mamata Banerjee is out to prove herself a big “Hindu” by saying , “don’t we celebrate Durga Puja here?”  Mamata raised the issue of Ram Mandir and said, “They don’t have guts to build Ram Temple (in Ayodhya)”.

BJP national president Amit Shah, in his meetings in the state, harped on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and National Register of Citizens for the entire country, including Bengal, to identify infiltrators. His target was the Muslim minority.