In this context, it is short-sighted on the part of the West Bengal government to take advantage of conflicting legal provisions in the state and assert that the panchayat elections will be held on the days it deems fit and that it alone can take a call on whether security forces have to be brought in from outside. This has put the state government in direct conflict with the state's Election Commission, which feels the panchayat elections ought to be staggered over three days and central forces are necessary. The state government first wanted the elections to be held on a single day and then came round to a two-day schedule. The West Bengal government's argument that the state is peaceful enough to not require what the Election Commission desires is cynical misdirection. One grass-roots Trinamool Congress leader has just been arrested for arson; and a municipal councillor who had been evading arrest over the killing of a policeman was arrested outside the state.
The coming panchayat elections are important for the ruling party, which wants to show that it still holds sway over voters in the countryside. This imperative and the ongoing, often violent, battle at the grass-roots level as the Trinamool Congress tries to wrest local suzerainty from the Left makes the coming panchayat elections fraught with the risk of violence. It is ironic that having come to power through elections held over several phases, as is being suggested by the state Election Commission, the state's ruling dispensation is arguing for a different model in which the popular will can be subverted by violence.