Bengal Panchayat election: TMC files nominations in 16,000 seats, BJP in over 11,000

KOLKATA: In a state like West Bengal, where filing nominations for Panchayat elections is considered as a 'success' for the Opposition parties, Bharatiya Janta Party managed to file nominations in 1143 seats while the ruling Trinamool Congress filed nominations in 1614 seats. However, the CPM could only file nominations in 351seats while Congress did it 157 seats.

According to political observers, the number for BJP assumes significance as in Bengal, the ruling party traditionally sweeps Panchayat elections leaving thousands of seats uncontested. In such condition, BJP being able to file nominations in over 1100 seats reflect BJP's organisational restructuring before the upcoming elections. And it bears political significance. Interestingly, BJP filed a good number of nominations in East Midnapore district, that is believed to be the strongest hold of Trinamool Congress.

The nomination filing process started on Monday amid political violence across the state. In view of unabated violence continuing across the state, Bengal Governor K N Tripathi summoned the state election commissioner AK Singh on Wednesday. TMC leaders however call governor's action as 'unprecedented'. Partha Chatterjee, secretary general of TMC however said that nomination filing process has remained 'peaceful' in the state. On BJP filling more than 11000 nominations in two days, Chatterjee said that the numbers shows that nobody was forcefully stopped from filing nominations.