Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) gained 18,606 gram panchayat seats and was main in one other 8,180 seats until 9 pm Tuesday, based on State Election Fee (SEC) knowledge. The Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) and the CPI(M)-Congress alliance continued to sq. off for the place of a distant second.
A complete of 63,229 gram panchayat seats in West Bengal went to the polls Saturday.
Political analyst Bishwanath Chakraborty informed ThePrint that whereas the numbers had been stacked in favour of the TMC, “the outcomes shouldn’t be taken as the final word individuals’s mandate due to the violence witnessed on polling day”.
In response to outcomes obtainable until 9 pm, the BJP secured 4,482 seats and was main in 2,419, whereas the CPI(M) gained 1,424 seats and was main in 922. The Congress, which contested the panchayat polls alongside the Left, gained 1,073 seats and was main in 693.
Barely two years in the past, the Left-Congress mix had didn’t win a single seat within the West Bengal meeting elections, which paved the best way for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s third consecutive stint in energy.
Sources within the SEC informed ThePrint that counting for zilla parishad seats and panchayat samiti seats was but to start as of 9 pm, since counting for the greater than 63,000 gram panchayat seats was a time-consuming course of owing to the involvement of poll papers.
With lower than a yr to go for the overall election, the ruling TMC, the BJP, the Left and the Congress have been eyeing the favored mandate in rural components of West Bengal, which sends a complete of 42 MPs to Parliament — third highest amongst all states.
The panchayat polls are being seen as a litmus check for the TMC, which made allocation of central funds to the state a key ballot plank, and the BJP, which is trying to consolidate its assist on the grassroots by taking part in up the alleged position of TMC leaders in varied scams.
Opposition events within the state have been crying foul over safety preparations for the Panchayat polls, alleging that widespread vote rigging happened and Central Armed Police Forces personnel, deployed within the state, had been discovered absent in a number of seats.
Chief of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari informed reporters Tuesday that the BJP has approached the Calcutta Excessive Courtroom with a requirement for re-polling in not less than 6,000 polling stations the place “free and truthful polls weren’t carried out”.
“The petition has proof from all these polling stations the place some form of obstruction was created. The matter will come up for listening to earlier than the Chief Justice’s bench tomorrow. We didn’t obtain any response from the State Election Fee and the excessive courtroom was our final resort,” mentioned the BJP MLA from Nandigarm.
Referring to situations of poll-related violence reported from throughout the state, CPI(M) chief Sujan Chakraborty informed ThePrint, “If the Trinamool needed to flex muscle and win the agricultural polls on this method, they shouldn’t have carried out elections within the first place. They might have instantly taken over the gram panchayats, not less than then there can be no bloodshed.”
At the least 10 individuals died throughout polling for the panchayat elections Saturday.
In response to Bishwanath Chakraborty, “Polling brokers of opposition events had been threatened and weren’t allowed inside counting stations even on counting day.”
Refuting prices in opposition to the TMC of unleashing violence in opposition to opposition candidates and their households, get together spokesperson Kunal Ghosh mentioned, “They’re sensing defeat and making baseless allegations. The BJP is making excuses to cover its personal organisational failure.”
On the TMC’s dominance in Congress bastions of Murshidabad, Malda and North Dinajpur, Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury — who arrange camp in Murshidabad for the polls, alleged that there was a tacit understanding between the central management of the BJP and the TMC that helped the ruling get together in West Bengal safe extra ballots.
Of the 5,591 gram panchayat seats in Murshidabad, the TMC gained 1,441 seats, the Congress 595, the CPI(M) 302 and the BJP 249 seats as of 9 pm.
In 2013, the TMC had swept native physique polls with over two-third majority, adopted by the Left and Congress as distant runners-up. 5 years later, the 2018 panchayat polls marked a change in West Bengal politics with the BJP rising as a drive to reckon with.
The TMC gained 38,118 gram panchayat seats in 2018, adopted by the BJP with 5,779 seats — a lot of them in tribal belts of northern and southern Bengal which embody Lok Sabha seats akin to Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Jhargram. The CPI(M) and Congress had been decimated, garnering solely 12 % and three.6 % of the entire votes polled respectively.
In almost all gram panchayat seats, the BJP had emerged because the runners-up. This was mirrored within the consequence of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by which the BJP elevated its tally to 18 from a meagre two it gained in 2014. With 69 MLAs, the BJP continues to be the principal opposition get together within the West Bengal Legislative Meeting.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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