00:00First, a 9-hour gherav judicial officers, now a CRPF convoy stopping at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya for prayers
00:06before heading for poll duty.
00:08These two visuals perhaps give the clearest preview of what kind of election this is going to be.
00:12Here's a look at the elections in West Bengal. First things fast.
00:21First, the elephant in the room, the special intensive revision.
00:24The SIR deleted 58 lakh names from West Bengal's electorate.
00:27From a total of 7.66 crore names, the total voters had come down to 7.08 crore in the
00:32draft list.
00:33Now that could be the difference between winning and losing, it would believe some experts.
00:36The stated purpose was clean up, remove the debt, the duplicates, the untraceable.
00:40What it produced instead was a powder keg.
00:42And the first April incident in Malda's College York was one big explosion.
00:46Seven judicial officers among the three women and a five-year-old child of one of the officers who was
00:51trapped inside a car.
00:52The Supreme Court came down strongly. CGI Surya Kang called it a brazen attempt to intimidate judicial officers,
00:58flagging lapses by the administration and the ordeal of a five-year-old child.
01:03The probe was handed to central agencies with the CBI and NIA stepping in.
01:07What makes SIR politically combustible is that it's not clean along religious lines either.
01:12Among those disenfranchised are Matua Hindus, a community that makes up 17% of West Bengal's population
01:18and holds decisive influence in 45 assembly constituencies.
01:22Now the BJP with champions CAA as the answer to Matua citizenship anxiety
01:27now finds its own voter base caught in the very exercise it enabled.
01:32The irony is not lost on anyone.
01:34Into all of this walks Amit Shah.
01:42At a rally, the Union Home Minister called defeating Mantha Banerjee from Bhavanipur
01:46a shortcut to uprooting the Trimul Congress from Bengal.
01:49Before Bihar's elections last year, Shah had camped there for five days.
01:53He promises to camp in Bengal for 15.
01:55In Bengal, he's running the same playbook except he's going to be here for 15 days.
01:59But in Bengal, he's facing Banerjee.
02:01Very few sign up to Shah the way Didi does.
02:07On Kolkata's walls, gravity has already appeared.
02:10Jotohi Koro SIR, Bangla Abal Mamatar.
02:13No matter how many SIRs you do, Bengal will still remain Mamatar.
02:16Polling is on April 23rd and 29th.
02:19Counting is on the 4th of May.
02:21Whether that graffiti turns out to be defiance or prophecy
02:24is as always in Bengal.
02:27Anybody's guess.
02:28I'm Anish Adhikari.
02:29First things fast.
02:35No.
02:37I'm Anish Adhikari.
02:37I'm Anish Adhikari.
02:37I'm Anish Adhikari.
02:37I'm Anish Adhikari.
02:37I'm Anish Adhikari.
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