Quick to latch on to the stroke of luck after activists of the Delhi unit of Student’s Federation of India and mother hen CPI(M) heckled her and manhandled her finance minister Amit Mitra, Mamata Banerjee has returned to Kolkata and got herself hospitalised.

Quoting a bulletin issued by Belle Vue Clinic, where the West Bengal chief minister got admitted immediately on her return from New Delhi on Wednesday, media reports said she had complained of severe pain in the shoulder joints, neck and knees. Banerjee had also complained of breathing problems and palpitation.

A report in the Telegraph newspaper quoted a clinic official, “The chief minister was suffering from low blood pressure and a low pulse rate when she was brought to the hospital.”

Without splitting hairs to figure out whether the feeling of being “unwell” was a direct corollary to Tuesday’s ruckus outside the Planning Commission building — going by reports, TV footage of the incident and Banerjee’s subsequent media bites and wagging of fingers at commission’s deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, it seems Ahluwalia should have been the one complaining palpitation — it is the average person in West Bengal who are feeling all those ailments now. Severe pain in shoulder joints, neck and knees, breathing problem, palpitation, and perhaps even low blood pressure and a low pulse rate as the Delhi ruckus gets escalated by more than a few notches as repercussion in Bengal.

While people, reportedly holding Trinamool Congress flags, purportedly owing allegiance to the ruling party and allegedly mouthing anti-CPI(M) slogans ransacked a 100-year-old science laboratory, among other acts of vandalism in Kolkata’s prestigious Presidency University, there were reports of at least two former Left Front ministers being attacked and their vehicles set ablaze, while tens of CPI(M) offices across the state were reportedly ransacked. There were also reports of police excess in the north Bengal city of Siliguri following clashes between SFI and Trinamool activists, as well as unrest in many other parts of Bengal.

This comes close on the heels of the strife between cadres of the state’s two biggest parties following the death of SFI leader Sudipto Gupta, allegedly due to police excesses, the attack on former state minister Abdur Rezzak Molla and many other incidents that do not hit the national media.

In this situation, the TMC is waging a war — on the sidelines, of course, for the main front has changed now — with the state election commission (SEC) to hold elections in two phases (meaning more polling stations per day with fewer security personnel to man them all) and without the presence of the CRPF. Five reasons why it is wishful thinking, more so in the present politically vitiated atmosphere:

1. When Mamata Banerjee said “I am going back... Delhi is not safe. I am sorry,” before leaving for Kolkata, she might just have meant it as a witty aside, for the situation back in her state is scary enough for even governor MK Narayanan, not exactly the opposition parties’ best friend in the state, to shudder at the “goondaism” going on in the state in the name of political one-upmanship. That was in January 2013, and the situation has only worsened since.

2. Never the epitome of neutrality under the Left Front administration, the state police is hardly any better today. Asked to bend, they crawl. Asked to act, they arrest a professor and keep in custody for circulating a spoof image of the CM, or arrest and file a chargesheet against a simple farmer who “dared” question the CM over rising fertilizer prices. As if to prove a point, the cops charged the man, Shiladitya Chowdhury, accusing him of “criminal trespassing, attacking cops and criminal intimidation”, enough to keep the man in jail for up to seven years if proved.

3. The CM, too, is seen to seldom let the police act independently. Besides constantly commenting on cases under probe — starting with debunking rape cases as “shajano ghatana” (cooked up stories) to the latest one about SFI activist Sudipto’s death being “an accident” — she also shunts out officers at will. This includes the Kolkata Police commissioner.

4. Historically, elections in Bengal have not been without their share of violence, and there is little logic in believing the scene has changed totally, and the slate cleaned for good, for the upcoming ones in the districts to be held uber-peacefully. In fact, more than Kolkata or other urban centres, primarily the scene of political clashes during the Left administration, it’s the villages which have become bloodier since Trinamool’s association with Nandigram and Singur struggles against land acquisition.

5. It is politically naïve to presume all is alright in Bengal while every other Johnnie across India is asked to bite the ballot under paramilitary watch. Humming Tagore’s “ekla chalo re” too much isn’t the brightest idea on all occasions.