<p>New Delhi: The last vote in this round of Assembly polls, held after the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, will be cast in <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/india/west-bengal">West Bengal</a> on Wednesday evening. A snapshot of the campaign trail reveals both troubling and promising signs.</p><p><strong>Citizenship fears</strong></p><p>There may be many reasons for the record turnout this time, but one thing that contributed immensely was the SIR-induced anxiety of losing citizenship if one failed to vote. Househelps and other migrant workers streamed out of Delhi’s suburbs like Gurugram, Faridabad and Noida, as they felt their citizenship was at risk. A Bengali maid in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida spent around Rs 4,000 on an AC train ticket home after failing to secure an ordinary ticket. </p><p><strong>27 lakh off rolls</strong></p><p>This is the number of people in Bengal who were once registered voters but have now been struck off the rolls for what the Election Commission terms “logical discrepancy”. The tribunals set up to review their cases are crawling: they have examined only about 650 cases so far, clearing just 139. Among those deleted are 65 polling and presiding officers. </p><p><strong>EC notices</strong></p><p>The EC appeared less busy this time when it came to issuing notices to erring leaders. When it did act, criticism followed for ignoring other cases. A notice went to Congress chief <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/mallikarjun-kharge">Mallikarjun Kharge</a> over his “terrorist” jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a remark he later clarified. But complaints against Modi for his nationally televised address, dubbed political, drew no response. The controversy has now escalated into a fresh Opposition notice demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. </p>.The narrative war in West Bengal. <p><strong>Targeting Muslims</strong></p><p>The minority community once again became the target of leaders like the BJP’s Himanta Biswa Sarma. Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah invoked the ‘infiltrator’ theme several times in West Bengal and Assam. The removal notice against the CEC claimed that around 34 per cent of the voters deleted in West Bengal were Muslims, when the community’s share of the state’s population is only 27 per cent.</p><p><strong>Rahul’s war</strong> </p><p>Rahul Gandhi has declared war not only on the BJP but on his partners as well. In Kerala, his targets were the CPM and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan; in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee. He accused them of either striking deals with the BJP or not fighting it hard enough. In Tamil Nadu, he avoided sharing a stage with DMK chief MK Stalin, whom he once described as his elder brother. </p><p><strong>Commander Shah</strong></p><p>The BJP is using every trick to win Bengal, where its commander is Amit Shah. He even branded Kolkata a ‘city of slums’. His ‘ei didi’ remark on Mamata also did not go down well with the Trinamool Congress, which reminded him of Modi’s ‘Didi, O’ Didi’ remark in 2021, which backfired. However, this time Modi is careful not to disturb ‘Bengali pride’.</p>.NDA, I.N.D.I.A. parties pick Assembly poll battles carefully. <p><strong>The Vijay factor</strong></p><p>All eyes are on actor-turned-politician Vijay and how he will fare in this election. Can he break the DMK-AIADMK duopoly? Will he secure a substantial share of votes and seats? And if the performance falls short, will he stay the course in politics? The answers will begin to unfold on May 4.</p><p><strong>CM challenge</strong></p><p>Parties confident of winning states have their CM face. Mamata in Bengal, Stalin in Tamil Nadu, Sarma in Assam and Vijayan in Kerala. Congress, which has strongly indicated that Gaurav Gogoi is its face in Assam, however, has shied away from naming anyone though it earnestly believes it is winning Kerala, fearing backlash from supporters of aspirants KC Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala and VD Satheesan.</p>
<p>New Delhi: The last vote in this round of Assembly polls, held after the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, will be cast in <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/india/west-bengal">West Bengal</a> on Wednesday evening. A snapshot of the campaign trail reveals both troubling and promising signs.</p><p><strong>Citizenship fears</strong></p><p>There may be many reasons for the record turnout this time, but one thing that contributed immensely was the SIR-induced anxiety of losing citizenship if one failed to vote. Househelps and other migrant workers streamed out of Delhi’s suburbs like Gurugram, Faridabad and Noida, as they felt their citizenship was at risk. A Bengali maid in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida spent around Rs 4,000 on an AC train ticket home after failing to secure an ordinary ticket. </p><p><strong>27 lakh off rolls</strong></p><p>This is the number of people in Bengal who were once registered voters but have now been struck off the rolls for what the Election Commission terms “logical discrepancy”. The tribunals set up to review their cases are crawling: they have examined only about 650 cases so far, clearing just 139. Among those deleted are 65 polling and presiding officers. </p><p><strong>EC notices</strong></p><p>The EC appeared less busy this time when it came to issuing notices to erring leaders. When it did act, criticism followed for ignoring other cases. A notice went to Congress chief <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/mallikarjun-kharge">Mallikarjun Kharge</a> over his “terrorist” jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a remark he later clarified. But complaints against Modi for his nationally televised address, dubbed political, drew no response. The controversy has now escalated into a fresh Opposition notice demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. </p>.The narrative war in West Bengal. <p><strong>Targeting Muslims</strong></p><p>The minority community once again became the target of leaders like the BJP’s Himanta Biswa Sarma. Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah invoked the ‘infiltrator’ theme several times in West Bengal and Assam. The removal notice against the CEC claimed that around 34 per cent of the voters deleted in West Bengal were Muslims, when the community’s share of the state’s population is only 27 per cent.</p><p><strong>Rahul’s war</strong> </p><p>Rahul Gandhi has declared war not only on the BJP but on his partners as well. In Kerala, his targets were the CPM and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan; in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee. He accused them of either striking deals with the BJP or not fighting it hard enough. In Tamil Nadu, he avoided sharing a stage with DMK chief MK Stalin, whom he once described as his elder brother. </p><p><strong>Commander Shah</strong></p><p>The BJP is using every trick to win Bengal, where its commander is Amit Shah. He even branded Kolkata a ‘city of slums’. His ‘ei didi’ remark on Mamata also did not go down well with the Trinamool Congress, which reminded him of Modi’s ‘Didi, O’ Didi’ remark in 2021, which backfired. However, this time Modi is careful not to disturb ‘Bengali pride’.</p>.NDA, I.N.D.I.A. parties pick Assembly poll battles carefully. <p><strong>The Vijay factor</strong></p><p>All eyes are on actor-turned-politician Vijay and how he will fare in this election. Can he break the DMK-AIADMK duopoly? Will he secure a substantial share of votes and seats? And if the performance falls short, will he stay the course in politics? The answers will begin to unfold on May 4.</p><p><strong>CM challenge</strong></p><p>Parties confident of winning states have their CM face. Mamata in Bengal, Stalin in Tamil Nadu, Sarma in Assam and Vijayan in Kerala. Congress, which has strongly indicated that Gaurav Gogoi is its face in Assam, however, has shied away from naming anyone though it earnestly believes it is winning Kerala, fearing backlash from supporters of aspirants KC Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala and VD Satheesan.</p>
