Booth captured, in 15 mins

Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay & Subhro Maitra TNN
It’s 9.30 am and an unusually long queue of voters has assembled at the gates of Lenin Memorial KMC Primary school (booth 12, 12A and 34 of Metiabruz assembly segment) on Garden Reach Road. A shove here, a push there and soon, all hell breaks loose with people in the queue rushing forward, complaining that people were not moving at all. We look around for paramilitary personnel as trouble seems imminent, but there is none. This ‘sensitive’ booth is guarded only by a home-guard, an armed constable and a sub-inspector. 9.40 am: We wait for a few minutes and decide to check out the chaos inside for ourselves. But the home-guard refuses to allow us inside — despite our displaying the Election Commission authority letter granting access. The ensuing argument costs us another, very precious, three minutes. Then, he says he would take the presiding officer’s permission before allowing us in. 9.50 am: We are allowed entry. But by then, everything has been put to order. We leave the premises, but decide to stand opposite the booth and keep watch. Sher Ali, a KMC worker, says a bomb had been exploded near the gate in the morning to scare away voters. “Women are really scared to come out and vote,” he says. 10 am: We don’t have to wait for long. Groups of well-built youths start arriving at the booth in autos. Three autos come within an interval of two minutes. Though they stand in the queue, it is not difficult to understand that they are not your regular voters. Soon, they start pushing the people in front. Gently, at first. Then, it turns into a jostle. And, in a flash, people standing in the queue find these youths going ahead of them at the gate. 10.15 am: The youths start pushing their way into the booths. Police put on a show of trying to stop them, but their reluctance is clearly visible. The toughs simply make their way through. The booth capturing is complete. The policemen, who were earlier busy preventing mediapersons from entering the booths, pretend as if nothing had happened. 10.16 am: The booth is captured inside and, as a result, jammed outside. Police, with renewed vigour, start maintaining the queue of voters outside. They seem relieved that ‘line-violators’ are no more in the queue. Ironically, they are inside the booth! Now, all quiet on the election front.