Trinamool Congress wins 10% seats even before battle begins

KOLKATA: The ruling Trinamool Congress has won 3,385 of the 36,160 seats unopposed in the nine districts where the first phase of panchayat elections will be held on July 2.

By winning these seats, Trinamool Congress has managed to grab more than 9% of the total seats without any contest. On Monday, opposition CPM alleged that the Trinamool Congress had unleashed terror in rural Bengal and won these seats by preventing opposition parties from filing their nominations.

“More than 5,000 of our candidates have not been able to file nomination papers and are constantly subjected to threats and intimidation from the ruling party to withdraw from the elections,” claimed veteran CPM leader and former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, on Sunday. Of the total 36,160 seats, the Trinamool Congress has won unopposed 2938 out of 29,849 gram panchayat seats, 443 of the 5797 panchayat Samiti seats and 4 of the 514 zilla parishad seats.

In the 2008 panchayat elections, the CPIM had won 2845 seats unopposed which was 5.57 per cent of the total seats in the three-tier panchayat system. In Hooghly district, the Trinamool Congress won unopposed 4 zilla parishad seats, which led to the opposition allegation that the ruling party had established a reign of terror in rural Bengal.

CPI state secretary Manju Kumar Majumdar wrote to state election commissioner Meera Pandey on Monday asking her to ensure a “terror-free environment” in the nine districts where elections will take place.

“The ruling party has forced many of our candidates not to submit their nomination papers. They also forced those Left and opposition candidates who managed to submit their nomination papers to withdraw those. The opposition candidates were also threatened with dire consequences if they lodged any complaint with either police or the commission,” Majumdar said in his letter to Pandey.

CPM politburo member Biman Bose claimed that their former MLA Dilip Sarkar was murdered because the ruling party wanted to terrorise the voters of Burdwan district before the panchayat elections.

“Sarkar was assigned by our party to lead the campaigns for panchayat elections in Asansol Burnpur area and the ruling party will certainly benefit with his death,” Bose said. He also said “we are apprehending more trouble for our candidates as there will be no Central force during the threephase elections.”

In response, a senior Trinamool Congress leader claimed “violence during 2008 panchayat elections was much more intense than what the opposition parties are claiming now. Ten persons had died in pre-poll violence in Murshidabad district alone. Killing of Sarkar has nothing to do with the panchayat elections and the police investigation will prove that.”