Kolkata: West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress is marching towards a massive victory in rural polls regarded as a curtain-raiser to the next general elections and the biggest test of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s popularity since she came to power in 2011.
The Trinamool has won or was on the verge of winning the majority of gram panchayats and panchayat samilties (the lowest and middle levels, respectively, of the three-tier rural council system) in 12 of the 17 districts in the state.
In the panchayat samities, the Trinamool’s was on track to win over 90 percent of the bodies.
The opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Front, which had established its dominance in 13 districts in the previous elections, held in 2008, failed to win the majority of gram panchayats in any district.
Nadia district was seeing a close fight between Trinamool and the LF, with the former leading.
The Congress bagged more than half the gram panchayats in its citadel, Murshidabad, and was in a tough three-way race with the Trinamool and the Left Front in another stronghold, Malda.
But it slipped badly in another base, North Dinajpur, where the LF got half the gram panchayats, with the Trinamool wresting a chunk of the Congress votes.
With counting over in about 80 percent of the gram panchayats and some panchayat samities, the Mamata magic seems to be intact in most of the districts.
The Trinamool was far ahead of its rivals in its south Bengal stronghold, where it was picking up an overwhelming number of gram panchyats in nine of the ten districts, except Nadia.
The Trinamool also seemed to be maintaining its stranglehold over Singur in Hooghly district and East Midnapore’s Nandigram, two rural areas where sustained and often violent farmers’ protests led by the party against the then LF government’s bid to acquire agricultural land for industries had paid it rich dividends.
The LF, which was hoping for a revival of its fortunes in some of the districts, suffered rude jolts in the former red forts of Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, North 24 Parganas, West Midnapore, Cooceh Behar and Hooghly.
There are in all 755 zilla parishad (district councils) constituencies spread over 17 zilla parishads, 8,864 panchayat samity constituencies in 341 panchayat samities and 36,016 gram panchayat constituencies in 3,354 gram panchayats.
Counting had just started for the zilla parishad seats.
Banerjee dedicated the win to the state’s villagers. “People in the state have got back democracy through the panchayat polls. I dedicate this victory to the rural population of the state. It is the victory of maa, maati, manush (mother, land and people).”
The LF accused the Trinamool of conspiring with the police and some State Election Commission officials to carry out rampant irregularities in the vote count.
“There have been rampant irregularities in counting. Trinamool counting agents, police personnel and some SEC personnel entrusted with counting have all conspired and are directly involved in the fraudulent counting of votes,” LF chairman Biman Bose told media persons here.
Incidentally, the Trinamool won more than 6,000 seats uncontested.
IANS
