TMC sweeps panchayat polls in West Bengal

Kolkata: Continuing its victory-run, the Trinamul Congress on Thursday swept the panchayat elections by winning 19 out of 20 zilla parishads (ZP) and emerging victorious in majority of the seats at the panchayat samiti (PS) and gram panchayat (GP) levels in the state. Significantly, the BJP’s vote bank grew in many areas where it dodged past the Congress and CPI(M) to rise to the second position.

Since the ruling party had already won more than one-third of the seats uncontested before a single vote was cast, the results of those seats have been put on hold on the Supreme Court’s order. One of those seats includes the ZP in Birbhum. If that is counted, the Trinamul’s tally will be 20 out of 20. Till the reports last came in at around 6 pm when the counting of GP was still underway, the Trinamul had won in 16,166 seats.

The BJP bagged the second position winning 4,020 seats, while the Left secured 1,042 seats and the Congress got 10 seats. Surprisingly, the Independent candidates won 1,248 seats. Emboldened by her party’s victory, chief minister Mamata Banerjee went on a warpath with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who recently expressed his anguish over the violence during the polls and uncontested win by the Trinamul.

“The PM made his comments after hearing the version of the BJP. He should have maintained a limit while making such comments. Facts were hushed up at the Supreme Court. Those seats which witnessed uncontested win were not contested by the Opposition parties because they failed to field candidates there,” she said.

The Trinamul supremo accused the BJP of pumping money from neighbouring states.

She alleged that the BJP brought manpower from Bangladesh. “Many BJP and Independent candidates contacted us after their win. They will be consulted later,” Ms Banerjee added. She informed that the criminal investigation department has been tasked to probe the mysterious death of presiding officer Rajkumar Roy at Raiganj in North Dinajpur.

Training guns at the ruling party, BJP leader Shameek Bhattacharya alleged, “The TMC, which unleashed terror for the past one month, carried on its atrocities during the counting of votes. It has now turned into a group of wild people compared to what the state saw it as from 1998 to 2011.”

State Congress president Adhir Choudhury alleged, “The people of the entire country are now in panic after seeing the way the panchayat polls were held in West Bengal by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who failed to repose her faith in her own political acumen and works of development, and created an environment of unprecedented anarchy across the state. They are now asking: Which Bengal is this?”

“The Trinamul supremo will continue this environment of intimidation till the Lok Sabha elections next year so that no Opposition party get a fair chance to do politics and contest the polls. She will make sure it becomes a nightmare for all other parties here. And to do it, she has created this environment,” he claimed.

CPI(M) MLA Sujan Chakraborty alleged, “No repoll was held at those places where the Trinamul looted votes. Repoll was done at those places where the Trinamul knew it would not fare well. What does it mean? There is no win or defeat if elections are not held. It was not at an election, it was a farce and mockery.”

He complained, “There was no difference between Nabanna, the state secretariat, the state election commission and the government officials. Votes were looted rampantly. Everyone knews it. The high scale of violence, uncontested win and repoll never happened in the state before.”