The sporadic instances of low-key violence, voter intimidation and enlisting the support of the state police in West Midnapore by the Trinamool Congress, besieged with anti-incumbency, was probably scripted before this part of West Bengal went to the polls in the first phase of the assembly elections in the state today.
As The Quint travelled across the largely tribal-populated district west of Kolkata, dissatisfaction with the ruling Trinamool Congress was palpable. The areas which constitute a vast tribal population were the most helpless. While people from a particular area in Purulia have boycotted the elections, the indigenous people cannot even afford to do so for the fear of being branded as Maoists and anti-state.
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