Voting for the new legislative assembly in West Bengal is over and the results will be declared on May 4. But before that, a consensus is being engineered that suggests Mamata Banerjee has already lost the election. Given the clinical manner in which this exercise was orchestrated, such an outcome may appear natural, even inevitable. While not making any guesses about the verdict, what we can do is to look back at the election campaign and try to understand what its conduct portends for the future of Bengal and the Indian Republic.The election was, ostensibly, a duel between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress. Yet, the Election Commission acted less as a neutral arbiter and more as a logistical auxiliary of the BJP, placing its vast institutional resources at the disposal of the ruling party at the Centre. The Supreme Court, too, by endorsing everything that the Commission did, provided a silent endorsement of this profound imbalance. If the people accept this model of managed democracy, our elections risk devolving into the hollow rituals once seen in the former Soviet Union — where the destination is determined long before the first step is taken.Sections of the press characterised this as the ‘toughest battle’ for Mamata Banerjee. It was certainly a ‘war’ if one considers the staggering, almost siege-like deployment of the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces. Observers ironically noted that only the Air Force and Navy were not mobilised. This deployment had less to do with the peaceful conduct of the elections and more to intimidate the Trinamool workers and exert psychological pressure on the electorate. The conduct of these forces was transparently partisan; the act of turning away voters simply for wearing a lungi was a visceral manifestation of a political culture that seeks to “identify people by their clothes.”The EC had signalled its intent early through a series of menacing proclamations, smoothening the path for the BJP by removing every perceived structural hurdle. Under the guise of ‘purifying’ electoral rolls, over 27 lakh living citizens were disenfranchised. The Commission’s primary interest lay not in the integrity of the vote, but in the surgical excision of an electorate deemed inconvenient to the BJP. The logic used to justify these mass deletions was so convoluted that even the Supreme Court found it “unprecedented and irrational.” Yet, the court displayed no urgency in restoring these fundamental rights, almost dismissively asking, “What disaster will befall if they cannot vote in this election?” This judicial indifference to the looting of the democratic rights of citizens is surely a bad omen for what lies ahead.Even polling officials found their own names struck from the lists. To the apex court, this was a mere triviality. They were told to conduct the polls today and worry about their own franchise in the next cycle. It did not go unnoticed that the names deleted were disproportionately Muslim, particularly in constituencies where their presence can be decisive.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Simultaneously, central investigative agencies were unleashed upon the professional firm managing the TMC’s campaign. The objective was a calculated paralysis of the party’s machinery. This was confirmed when, immediately following the final phase of polling, the arrested persons were granted bail without opposition from the Enforcement Directorate. The relentless punitive action against TMC cadres was so brazen that the Calcutta High Court was forced to restrain the Election Commission twice. Yet, the arrests continued. The institutions tasked with safeguarding democracy left no stone unturned to make the task easy for the BJP. It was a race where one contestant’s hands were tied behind their back—a spectacle that some find deeply worrying, but which many others, alas, seem to relish.The BJP’s slogan of pariborton (‘change’) served as a thin veil, much like ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ once masked its communal core. Behind this rhetoric, the term used with the most violent frequency was ‘infiltrator.’ Amit Shah repeatedly framed Mamata Banerjee as the patron of these ‘outsiders,’ vowing to oust them ‘one by one.’ The subtext was clear to all.Shahjahan Sheikh, the TMC leader accused of land-grabbing and violence in Sandeshkhali, was labelled an ‘infiltrator.’ He could have been termed a criminal, but the Home Minister deliberately chose a communal category to reinforce the narrative that the Muslim is an eternal outsider. This was complemented by the convenient emergence of Humayun Kabir, whose rhetoric regarding the Babri Masjid provided the BJP with the perfect excuse to speak about Muslim dominance. Amit Shah seized upon this immediately, declaring that “as long as a single BJP worker is alive,” such a project would be thwarted. In the political geography of Bengal, many suspect Kabir to be a tactical plant of the BJP itself – a tool to provoke the very majoritarian mobilisation the BJP thrives upon.All BJP leaders kept promising the Uniform Civil Code. We know what it means.Narendra Modi, in his trademark coded vocabulary, accused Banerjee of obstructing Durga Puja for the sake of “vote-bank politics.” The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh shouted that Urdu would not be allowed to become the language of Bengal, which, apparently, the TMC rule would do. He accused the TMC of conspiring to make Bengal ‘Hindu-shunya’. BJP leader and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma framed the contest as a civilisational struggle of the ‘indigenous’ against the ‘intruder.’The local face of the BJP, Suvendu Adhikari, anchored his campaign in the slogan of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, explicitly weaponising the act of worship: “I am offering puja, Mamata is doing Namaz.” The attempt to polarise the electorate required no further explanation.The BJP contested this election entirely in the vocabulary of Hindutva, seeking to ‘save’ Hindus from a manufactured Muslim threat. It was a campaign that did not seek the Muslim vote; it sought to consolidate the Hindu vote against them. This communal blitzkrieg, sanctioned by the partisan conduct of the Election Commission, has left the thinking citizens of Bengal in a state of profound anxiety. If a government is inaugurated on the back of such a campaign, the nature of its future reign is not difficult to imagine.Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.