Peace in the time of panchayats

The Panchayat Pradhan of Diamond Harbour Police District’s Bishnupur village, Mujibar Sheikh was not worried.

- DOLA MITRA

The incumbent chief of the village administration and the Trinamool Gram Panchayat candidate for the rural polls which was conducted on July 8, believed that he had tried to do his best in the past five years and he felt that if villagers were happy with his work, they would vote for him.

“The people will decide whether they want me back or not,” he said in an interview to The Statesman the day after the polls were conducted. “Here the candidates of other political parties too participated in the contest and we have no enmity with one another other than political differences,” he said.

Indeed, Bishnupur village is an example of how peaceful the polling process can be. It is situated in one of the fourteen districts which did not register any cases of violence during an election which witnessed bloodshed and death even if they were limited to a few districts.