Jayanta Bhattacharya

The raid has triggered a political storm intensifying the confrontation between the state’s ruling and principal Opposition parties over the role of central probe agencies in India’s electoral landscape.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi opened a can of worms last month alleging inclusion of non-existent voters in the list by more than one lakh in the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency. Rahul Gandhi described it as a ‘vote chori’ and went on a campaign in Bihar along with Tejashwi Yadav.

Both West Bengal chief minister and Jan Suraaj party founder Prashant Kishore in Bihar have chosen sub-nationalism as their poll campaign focus – Banerjee, linguistic sub-nationalism and Kishore, economic nationalism.