Independents, mostly dissident Trinamul Congress candidates, made their presence winning 119 in 2,274 wards in 108 municipal bodies’ elections across the state while the opposition BJP has bagged 63 seats. For Congress, it’s 59 and CPI-M-led Left Front has won 57 civic wards retaining only Taherpur municipality in Nadia district.
Ruling Trinamul Congress has won 1976 municipal wards strengthening its grip in urban local bodies by forming 102 civic boards. Resentment over the ruling Trinamul Congress’s civic poll candidate list had spread across 19 districts in the state prompting the dissidents to file nominations in more than 200 wards despite the party leadership’s strong appeal to withdraw their candidatures as independents.
With the winning of independents four municipal bodies Beldanga in Murshidabad, Champdani in Hooghly, Jhalda in Purulia and Egra in East Midnapore – have witnessed a hung situation. Independents have also surprisingly have also achieved second positions next to Trinamul Congress in eight municipalities.
A political observer in the city said, “Now it’s interesting to see whether the Trinamul leadership brings back the independents to the party for their political gain. The party would desperately try get them to form boards in four municipalities where hung situation exists.”
The entire rebel Trinamul Congress leaders those were expelled from the party for filing nominations as Independent candidates in the three municipalities in Bankura have defeated the official TMC candidates, which may provoke the TMC to assess – whether the party failed to estimate the people’s choice.
In Bankura Municipality, the Vice Chairman of the former TMC run board Dilip Agarwal and former Councilors Ananya Roy Chakraborty and Debashis Laha had filed nominations as Independent candidates against TMC’s official candidates in Wards – 7, 18 & 1 respectively and defeated the TMC’s official choics.
Another rebel Latika Haldar who’d filed nomination as an Independent candidate against TMC candidate in Ward – 23 however had withdrawn her papers and was seen campaigning for the party candidate in her ward. “Our victory rather would insist Didi and the TMC to rethink the entire issue that the victory reflects the fact that the TMC’s candidate’s list was not prepared based on people’s choice,’ said Agarwal.
What’s next, asked, Agarwal said: “We were not blessed by Didi. Still we won by the people’s mandate. Now, whatever we want to do would first be taken to the voters for their approval and then decide.” Dibyendu Singha Mahapatra, the TMC’s president for Bankura organising district however claimed: “None of the Independent candidates won out of their personal charisma. They were the Councilors of the outgoing boards and were active in delivering our Chief Minister’s pro-people schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar, Swastha Sathi, which helped them to win.”
In Bankura Municipality, the TMC won in 21 wards and three by the Independents. The BJP and the LF failed to buy a single ward this time. In Bishnupur and Sonamukhi municipality areas, the TMC had expelled 11 ward committee presidents and members on charges of anti-party activities and sabotage and also for filing nominations against TMC’s official candidates. In Bishnupur, – three rebels – Sanjoy Mukherjee, Debjit Kundu and Hiralal Dutta defeated TMC’s official candidates in wards – 8, 11 & 12. Former Administrator of the Bishnupur Municipality, Dibyendu Banerjee however suffered an unexpected defeat from BJP’s Shankhajit Roy.
The BJP won in two wards and the Congress in one ward there. In Sonamukhi, four Independent candidates defeated the TMC’s official candidates, three of them however were backed by the CPI-M. The CPI-M won in two wards there Ajit Pati, CPI-M’s district secretary said: “TMC’s uncontrolled terror and intimidation helped them to buy this result.” BJP’s Bankura organizing district president Sunil Rudra Mondal said: “We suspect that the TMC had engineered the EVMs to earn this result.”