On 19 April 2026, The Hindu’s Vijaita Singh posted a tweet that went viral for all the right reasons. With four photographs, she asked a question that cut through all political noise: “Chiefs of all CAPFs – BSF, CISF, CRPF, SSB, ITBP – converge in Kolkata and brainstorm on how to make elections ‘free, fair and transparent’ in West Bengal. Don’t remember the last time such a meeting was held in any other State.”
Four days later, on 23 April 2026, Murshidabad answered the question for her.
What Happened in Murshidabad
Barely hours into Phase 1 polling, Nowda in Murshidabad district erupted. Crude bombs were hurled near active polling areas. A CPM worker’s son was attacked and injured by alleged TMC goons. In Shibnagar, a crude bomb exploded just 50 metres from a polling station – while voters were inside casting their ballots. In Domkal, TMC and CPM workers clashed violently through the night, leaving four people injured, one in critical condition.
This was not a border skirmish. This was not a law-and-order breakdown in some remote, ungoverned territory. This was a democratically held election, in a constitutional democracy, in 2026 and citizens were being bombed for trying to vote.
View this post on Instagram
A video emerged from Raipur Karigar Para of a group of men moving through a residential neighbourhood, ordering residents to “go inside” and demanding gates be raised – textbook voter intimidation, captured in broad daylight.
This is not a surprise. This is not an anomaly. This is Bengal under TMC – predictable, documented, and utterly unsurprising to anyone who has honestly covered this state.
This Is Why Every CAPF Chief Was in Kolkata
The meeting Vijaita flagged on 19 April 2026 was not paranoia. It was not overkill. It was institutional memory. Every election officer, every central force commander, every returning officer posted in Bengal carries the same knowledge: that in this state, under this government, political violence is not an aberration – it is a method.
The TMC government has for years presided over a Bengal where booth capturing, crude bomb attacks, and targeted violence against opposition workers are part of the electoral landscape. When the Supreme Court and the Election Commission have repeatedly had to intervene in West Bengal elections specifically – deploying CAPF troops, installing cameras, stationing observers – it is because the state government has consistently failed to guarantee the constitutional right to vote freely.
No other state requires every CAPF chief in a room because no other state has normalised election violence at this scale and with this impunity.
The TMC’s Unspoken Manifesto
Crude bombs 50 metres from a polling station is not a law and order failure. It is a political statement. It tells opposition voters: we know where you are voting, we can reach you there, and the state machinery will not stop us. It tells CPM workers who have been beaten, chased, and killed across Bengal for years: nothing has changed.
This is the same TMC government that Mamata Banerjee leads while projecting herself as a champion of federalism and democracy. The same government whose workers are on camera attacking opponents. The same government under whose watch Murshidabad, one of the most sensitive districts in Bengal, became a synonym for poll violence election after election.
Hope She Got Her Answer
CPM worker’s family in a Murshidabad hospital. Crude bomb crater 50 metres from a polling booth. Residents locked inside their homes by a political mob on election night.
This is why every CAPF chief was in Kolkata, Vijaita. Not BJP. Not Modi. Not some ECI conspiracy. This is why. And she knew it on April 19. She just decided her readers didn’t need to.
What Vijaita is doing is not journalism, she is just choosing a side while pretending you haven’t.
Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.
