why BJP is revisiting the disputed polls

The episode also revisits a defining moment in West Bengal’s political history, when allegations of large-scale rigging, violence against political workers and suppression of electoral competition dealt a severe blow to the credibility of the democratic process.

Surprising outcome

The results of the March 1972 Assembly election came as a surprise to many observers. Although a Congress victory was anticipated, given the political climate and the backdrop of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the scale of the party’s success was unexpected.

The Congress won 216 of the 280 seats, while its ally, the CPI, secured 35. The CPI(M), which had won 113 seats in the 1971 Assembly election, was reduced to just 14. The Left had contested the election in an alliance with several other parties, making its electoral rout all the more striking.

Yet, the tally concealed a more complicated picture of popular support. In an article published in the Economic and Political Weekly on April 15, 1972, CPI(M) leader Biplab Dasgupta argued that the result bore little relation to its share of the vote.

“The number of seats bagged by that party (Congress) in the recent election is misleading and unfair as a measure of its popular support,” he wrote.

The CPI(M) had secured about 28% of the vote, he noted. “Had its seats reflected this vote share proportionately, it would have won around 78 seats instead of 14. The party’s vote share, moreover, was only marginally below the Congress’s 29% in the 1971 election,” he argued.

Dasgupta also pointed to the absence of a uniform swing against the CPI(M). While the party had lost in several constituencies, it had gained in others. The CPI(M)-led front, he said, had secured about 36% of the votes but only 20 seats.

For the Left, the disparity between votes and seats became a central argument in challenging the legitimacy of the result.

‘Rigging and intimidation’

The CPI(M) alleged that the election was marked by systematic interference with the voting process. Its allegations included booth capture, intimidation and obstruction of voters, use of firearms and bombs, failure to secure ballot boxes and manipulation of counting.

Violence, according to Left leaders, began well before polling day. Accounts by party workers described attacks on election meetings, the displacement of political families from their homes and the targeting of Opposition activists.

Rabin Dev, now a CPI(M) central committee member, was 23 at the time. He recalled being attacked by Congress workers near Surendranath College in the Sealdah area.

“Congress goons attacked our office. I ran away and got into a tram. They chased and beat me and threw me out,” he said, adding that local residents took him to hospital with severe injuries.

Dev also recalled hearing in hospital that Jyoti Basu, the CPI(M)’s senior leader and candidate from Baranagar, had withdrawn his candidature after witnessing “large-scale rigging”. Other CPI(M) candidates were also said to have withdrawn.

Ramala Chakraborty, then associated with the students’ movement and later a leader of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, also recalled the violence. She said her family had been forced to leave its residence in Motilal Colony and move to Behala.

Recounting an incident in the Purba Sinthi area, Chakraborty said a CPI(M) party meeting on March 5, 1972 – six days before polling – was attacked by the police and Congress workers. Five comrades were killed, she recalled.

“On election day, armed Congress workers had taken control of the area and her parents were turned away from the voters’ queue,” she said.

What EC records show

The account of the 1972 election by the Election Commission (EC) recorded disturbances at several polling stations, particularly in and around Kolkata, as well as tension among political parties, workers and supporters.

Opposition parties subsequently alleged large-scale rigging in numerous constituencies. The poll panel, however, recorded only a limited number of formal complaints from voters who claimed they had been prevented from voting.

The official record acknowledged a troubled electoral environment, while the CPI(M) and other Opposition voices described a far more extensive pattern of organised malpractice.

The CPI(M) denounced the result and stayed away from the legislature for much of the Assembly’s term, challenging the legitimacy of the Congress government, terming it a “semi-fascist takeover”. The party characterised the outcome as a betrayal of democratic norms, and the election became a defining grievance in its political narrative.

Political context of 1972 polls

The 1972 election followed years of political instability, changes of governments and escalating violence.

The Congress had dominated the state after Independence, but divisions within the party and the emergence of competing political formations weakened its position during the 1960s. The Bangla Congress emerged from a split in the Congress, while the Communist movement divided in 1964 into the CPI and the CPI(M).

In the 1967 Assembly election, the Congress won 127 seats, the Bangla Congress 34, the CPI(M) 43 and the CPI 16. Ajoy Mukherjee of the Bangla Congress became Chief Minister at the head of a coalition government. Its collapse was followed by another change of government, with Prafulla Chandra Ghosh taking office.

The state witnessed another Assembly election in 1969, followed by mid-term polls in 1971 and 1972.

At the same time, West Bengal was experiencing the rise of the Naxalite movement, which began in Naxalbari in 1967 and developed into a wider campaign. Attacks by radical groups, clashes between political workers and the state’s response to the movement contributed to an atmosphere of insecurity.

By 1971, the situation had deteriorated. Newspaper reports regularly carried accounts of killings and attacks, and the EC had to consider the security of election personnel and voters.

The Assembly polls were scheduled for March 10, 1971, several days after voting in the rest of the country, to allow security forces to be concentrated in West Bengal. Even so, elections in three constituencies — Dum Dum, Ukhra and Shyampukur — had to be countermanded following the murders of candidates.

Hemanta Kumar Basu, president of the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) and candidate from Shyampukur, was murdered on February 20, 1971. A fresh election was scheduled with Ajit Kumar Biswas as the party’s candidate. But Biswas was murdered on May 28, forcing the poll to be cancelled again.

In Ukhra, Bangla Congress candidate Debdatta Mondal was murdered on February 17. In Dum Dum, Congress (O) candidate Pijush Chandra Ghosh was killed on March 5.

The EC warned in its report that the use of physical force to influence voting had become one of the most dangerous features of the election.

The fresh polls could not be completed in Shyampukur after the second murder as the Assembly was dissolved on June 25, 1971, setting the stage for another election the following year.

The last Congress CM

The 1972 election brought Siddhartha Shankar Ray to power, the last Congress CM to hold the post. His government’s most consequential actions included a severe crackdown on the Naxalite movement.

Thousands of young people were arrested during the period, while allegations of custodial abuse, extrajudicial killings and police excesses became part of the record of state repression. Places such as Barasat and Cossipore acquired grim associations with violence against young men suspected of Naxalite links.

While the government claimed its actions were a response to political violence and threats to public order, civil liberties campaigners and Left organisations accused the state of resorting to indiscriminate repression.

Ray’s political significance extended beyond West Bengal. He was an important adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi before the Emergency was declared in June 1975.

In West Bengal, the Emergency overlapped with an already fraught political environment shaped by electoral disputes, state repression and years of violence. It further deepened the hostility between the Congress and its opponents.

Left victory in 1977

In the Assembly election held in 1977, Bengal had endured a decade of political instability, radical violence and bitter disputes over electoral legitimacy.

The Congress was defeated decisively, and the Left Front, led by the CPI(M), came to power. Basu became Chief Minister, beginning a period of Left Front rule that would last until 2011.

For the Left, the 1977 victory represented not merely a change of government but a rejection of the political order associated with the preceding years. The memory of 1972, in particular, remained central to its account of the Congress’s rule and its own eventual rise to power.