Never in all the elections over the past 35 years that I have voted in Ballygunge, one of the constituencies within the South Kolkata parliamentary seat, have I witnessed such security arrangements. Semi automatic wielding central security forces manning polling stations, ordering people to queue up, regulating the number of people entering the polling station, while the Kolkata police personnel on duty kept their distance, was disorienting. Was this stolid, peaceful Ballygune or was this a polling station in the Kashmir Valley?As a long-time resident, I was startled to learn that the Election Commission had listed 400 polling stations out of 1,093 in Ballygunge, Rashbehari, Chowringhee and Bhowanipore as “vulnerable” or “sensitive.” Over the years, the deployment of semi-automatic armed central forces patrolling Kolkata’s quietest streets has increased, as successive Election Commissioners responded to West Bengal’s reputation for political violence. The deployment for the 2026 Assembly elections is unprecedented.Bhabanipur, the constituency Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is defending against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s most prominent local face, Suvendu Adhikari—once her protégé and now her adversary—is understandably both vulnerable and sensitive politically. When Income Tax raid parties descended on Miraj Shah, a Gujarati businessman, educationist and vice-president of the prominent Bhabanipur Education Society, days after he proposed Mamata Banerjee as a candidate for the constituency, it became clear why the area and its residents posed a security risk for the EC.Bhabanipur is a microcosm of Kolkata, with pockets of Gujarati, Sikh and Punjabi voters interspersed among Bengalis, both wealthy and poor. It also has concentrations of “Hindi speakers,” a mixed group of migrants and domiciled residents from across the cow belt.As the BJP candidate prowled the roads, streets and narrow lanes of Bhabanipur with his elaborate security cover, his jumpy reactions to crowds, who occasionally hooted and jeered, made the near lockdown effect in the constituency obvious. He was reacting to everything; he called slogan shoutingTrinamool Congress groups, Bangladeshi, for taunting him with Joy Bangla slogans; he said the choked Buri Ganga that flows past Kalighat, where the famous temple is located, was a dumping ground for Bangladeshis. He was heard calling on central security personnel to take control and lathi-charge a crowd of Trinamool supporters. Whether the lathi charge occurred at his direction or because the security forces independently deemed it necessary remains an open question.The transformation of Kolkata into a seemingly dangerous place, with over 837 polling booths out of 1,835 declared “super sensitive” in North Kolkata, reflects the Election Commission’s excessive sensitivity to the political narrative that the city is a hotbed of violence. The route marches by armed central forces, their presence on the streets, and their overwhelming and intimidating control of polling stations amount to an exaggerated display for public consumption.