In West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress won a landslide victory at all three levels in the village panchayat elections.
The Trinamool Congress won 42,122 out of 63,229 Gram Panchayat seats, 5,263 out of 9,730 Panchayat Samiti seats and 526 out of 928 Zilla Parishad seats.
The main opposition party in the state, the BJP, came a close second behind. They won 9,307 Gram Panchayat, 572 Panchayat Samiti and 15 District Parishad seats.
Some more results are still awaited to be declared.
This time the violence started from the time of nomination for panchayat election. 40 people have died in these violence so far. Even after counting began on Tuesday, there were reports of violence and allegations of opposition parties throwing ballot papers into drains. In the afternoon, the BJP, CPM leadership complained that they were being forcibly removed. In some places opposition candidates were declared winners but later withdrawn under pressure.
In North 24 Parganas district, the Trinamool Congress candidate was accused of spoiling the ballot after knowing that the victory of the CPM candidate was certain.
Meanwhile, Trinamool All India General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee wrote on Twitter during the panchayat vote counting, “Grateful to the people for turning ‘No Vote to Mamata’ into ‘No Vote for Mamata.’ Besides, he criticized BJP, CPM and Congress as one. Abhishek’s tweet also includes the topic of field preparation for the upcoming Lok Sabha.
