Nine months after its landslide win in the West Bengal assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress on Monday reaffirmed its dominance among urban voters as it made a clean sweep in the elections to four municipal corporations. The TMC retained control of Bidhannagar, Chandernagore and Asansol municipal corporations and wrested power in Siliguri from the CPI(M)-led Left Front.
Both the vote share and the number of seats for the TMC in these civic bodies were much higher than the last election held in 2015. The CPI(M) lost opposition status to the BJP in Asansol and Siliguri, but retained its distant second position in Bidhannagar and Chandernagore. The resounding victory in the four civic bodies comes when the party is having a hard time amid a growing rift between the old-timers and Gen Next leaders.
While TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee said it is the victory of the people, the BJP claimed that the ruling party had resorted to “terror tactics” on February 12, the polling day. The Mamata Banerjee-led party retained Bidhannagar by winning 39 out of 41 seats, while the opposition BJP and CPI(M) failed to open their account. The Congress and an Independent candidate bagged one ward each, according to the State Election Commission (SEC) data.
In Bidhannagar, the TMC got 95.5 per cent of the total votes polled, whereas the Congress and the independents secured 2.44 per cent each. Of the 32 wards in Chandernagore, the TMC bagged 31 and the CPI(M) one. The vote share of the two parties is 96.88 per cent and 3.13 per cent respectively.
However, the icing on the cake for the state’s ruling party is snatching the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) from the CPI(M)-led Left Front, where the TMC pocketed 37 out of the total 47 seats. The BJP got the opposition status by clinching five seats, whereas the Left was relegated to the third position as it managed to win only four seats. The Congress got one seat, according to the SEC data.
The TMC’s vote share in Siliguri is 78.72 per cent, while the BJP and the CPI(M) managed 10.64 per cent and 8.5 per cent of the votes polled respectively. Outgoing mayor Ashok Bhattacharya and BJP MLA Sankar Ghosh lost the polls in the SMC. An elated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that TMC leader Gautam Deb, who won by a margin of 3,000 votes, would be the next mayor of SMC.
In Asansol, the TMC emerged victorious in 91 of the 106 seats and was leading in five wards, while the BJP won in seven seats, and the CPI(M) and the Congress won two and three seats respectively. In this industrial city, the TMC so far bagged 64.71 per cent of the total votes polled, whereas the BJP got 4.91 per cent and the CPI(M) 1.96 per cent. In Asansol’s ward no 31, the result was a tie, following which a lottery was conducted and TMC candidate Asha Prasad was declared the winner. “It is once again an overwhelming victory of Ma, Mati, Manush. My heartiest congratulations to the people of Asansol, Bidhannagar, Siliguri & Chandanagore for having put their faith and confidence on All India Trinamool Congress candidates in the Municipal Corporation elections,” Banerjee tweeted.
While talking to a news channel later, she thanked the SEC for conducting the polls in a free and fair manner. “I think any victory strengthens our resolve to serve the people with a greater vigour,” she said.
The opposition BJP, however, claimed it was the victory of “undemocratic practices and terror tactics”. “All of us know how votes were looted on the polling day. The result doesn’t reflect the people’s mandate,” BJP national vice president Dilip Ghosh said.
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