After the West Bengal Assembly polls, allegations of post-poll violence dominated the political landscape for several months. Heavyweight BJP leaders like Leader of Opposition in Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari kept raising the issue and BJP President JP Nadda even compared the post-poll violence in West Bengal to the partition days.
Some alleged victims of post-poll violence, including gang-rape survivors moved the Supreme Court for pro-active action in the matter. All this while, the BJP kept claiming that its sympathizers/ workers were wronged in the post-poll violence. However, when things moved towards a reasonable conclusion, the Centre decided to back off and avoid representing itself before the apex court in the ongoing petition relating to West Bengal post-poll violence.
On Friday, the Supreme Court said that it will take up the petition regarding judicial probe into post-poll violence after two weeks as no lawyer appeared in the case for the Centre or the West Bengal government despite the Court issuing notices to them on July 1.
An apex court bench comprising Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari stated, “The office report states that respondent 1 (Union of India) and respondent 2 (State of West Bengal) have been served with the petition but are not represented through any counsel.”
The only party that appeared was the Election Commission of India, represented through advocate Amit Sharma. However, the apex court noted that the Centre and the State are the necessary parties in this case. Therefore, it allowed the petitioner’s counsel to serve the petition once again on the two governments and directed that the matter be put up after two weeks.
At the end of the day, the fact that the Centre didn’t even bother to put up an appearance over the case speaks volumes about its lack of seriousness. Till now, the post-poll violence in West Bengal was supposedly a matter of grave concern for the top brass of the ruling BJP. However, the Centre seems to be treating its workers as expendables. On one hand, the BJP alleges that its workers/ sympathizers got victimized and on the other hand, the Centre doesn’t feel that a petition for such workers deserves any timely representation.
The absence of a counsel for the Centre before the Supreme Court has already triggered angry reactions on social media. Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, for example, tweeted, “The BJP takes the lives of its workers & voters in Bengal so seriously that it didn’t even bother making a representation…….didn’t even bother.”
The BJP takes the lives of its workers & voters in Bengal so seriously that it didn’t even bother making a representation…….didn’t even bother. https://t.co/ylY6YGp93s
— Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) July 30, 2021
Similar reactions were actually visible all over the social media, with social media users asking why the Central government isn’t doing enough to ensure speedy disposal of the complaints relating to post-poll violence in the state of West Bengal after the petition has been taken up for hearing in the Supreme Court.
In #WestBengal post-poll violence case, #SupremeCourt had issued notices to Union & state government on July 1.
Around a month later, the Centre doesn't even appear today in the case to say anything. There was no counsel appearing. Court adjourns the case by two weeks.
— Utkarsh Anand (@utkarsh_aanand) July 30, 2021
The first step in making lives of a few expendable is to dehumanize them. It started with murders of BJP and RSS members in Kerala being (expressly and implicitly) acceptable. Story repeats in Bengal. As long as it's BJP/RSS members who are being killed, it's acceptable now.
— Abhishek Dwivedi (@Rezang_La) July 30, 2021
Centre’s failure to appear before the Surpeme Court when the petition about post-poll violence in Bengal came up for hearing makes for really bad optics. The most immediate presumption that one can draw is that all the hullabaloo regarding violence against its workers and gory details of heinous crimes were used to draw public sympathy, but once the purpose was achieved the Centre simply decided to stop pursuing the matter and abandon the alleged victims.