Having taken on all forms of political parties and formations, government and constitutional bodies, media and trivia, opposition and divergent proposition, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has found a new adversary in the state election commission (SEC).

If the poll panel cannot give her, and her constituents, firm dates for immediate elections to the panchayats to showcase the real revolution in West Bengal under her nearly-two-year administration (the panchayats have traditionally been the Left’s biggest catchment area for voters), Banerjee, in her unbounded wisdom, enthusiasm and chutzpah, has decided to give the dates to the poll panel instead.

Take it or leave it, she seems to be saying. Only, it could be meant, once the SEC fires its comeback salvo, for the electorate in the state’s 17 districts: take the decision, forget the polls, for now at least.

While it is a mystery why Banerjee is yet to dub the SEC and its officials “Maoists” for opposing her whims and yearning for announcing election dates to her liking on ASAP mode, the panchayat polls in Bengal look perilously close to dating court dates.

Here’s why the Mamata Banerjee government’s choice for the polls (in two phases instead of the SEC’s suggested three), its dates (April 26 and 30, overruling the poll panel’s choice of a later time) and the bandobast around it (fewer central paramilitary forces, booths marshalled by state policemen, against the SEC’s choice for central forces) is slightly unwarranted for the lowest tier of democracy in the state:

1. Bengal is the new erstwhile Bihar, and Trinamool Congres the new CPI(M). So little wonder that given the scale of political violence over the last two years in the state the SEC wants a three-phase election partly manned by central paramilitary forces. But announcing the panchayat poll dates in Kolkata on Friday (March 22), Subrata Mukherjee, the state panchayat minister, said, “The number of personnel to be deployed will be ascertained, booth by booth, by the home department (under the chief minister).”

The Telegraph-Kolkata reports: “Asked if central forces would be sought as the commission had proposed, Mukherjee confined himself to saying “armed police personnel” would be deployed in every booth.

In a state where the Kolkata police commissioner is shunted out over violence in a college, allegedly involving a Trinamool Congress local leader and the chief of the CID police for cracking the high-profile Park Street rape case that the CM said was concocted, and where the state police file surreptitiously file a fat chargesheet accusing a farmer of criminal trespass, attacking policemen and criminal intimidation for daring to question the CM’s fertiliser policy at a public rally (read here), among tens of instances of police highhandedness with a political bent, not many would feel safe for the future of democracy at the panchayat level under ‘only’ state policemen.

In fact, the growing level of violence has prompted the state’s governor, MK Narayanan, to tick off the government over the apparent “goondaism”, while then home minister P Chidambaram had said last year, “Democracy is a place for word for word, argument for argument and not for bullet for bullet.”

2. Democracy involves more than the party. Claiming that the poll dates were finalised to ensure “free, fair and democratic”, Subrata Mukherjee said while announcing the details, “We have discussed the polls in detail among ourselves and decided on this roster.”

Democratic? That sounds a little rich coming from a minister who announced the election roster after a hastily convened meeting at the chief minister’s assembly chamber and without discussing it with the election commission — “We have just been informed,” SEC secretary Tapas Ray was quoted in the Telegraph report.

In what is tragic for Bengal and laughable for the rest of India, democracy has come to mean of, by and for for only a handful, usually that handful, too, begin and culminate with Banerjee herself. So while Mukherjee may not be far from the Trinamool version of the truth, it isn’t exactly model democracy, as no doubt the opposition will say (the Congress has already started seeing red, while the CPI-M is waiting for the poll panel’s opinion to form its own opinion) and the SEC will feel.

3. It’s a lose-lose proposition for all if matter courts court. And the biggest losers, as the issue looks set to be tried legally, in this case would be the electorate, stuffed as they are with a cantankerous state government and an uncooperative one at the centre, especially after the belligerent CM walked out of the alliance.0

Or has the insular CM finally looked out and realised her ever-so-slowly growing unpopularity, and thus got her panchayat minister to announce the dates knowing well that it would be legally challenged? Is it, then, a well-calculated ploy by Banerjee to have the elections deferred? The answer might come early next week, when the state election commission meets and outs its decision.