West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will kick-start her full-scale campaign for the July 8 panchayat elections in the state on Monday.
As per the schedule, the first campaigning for the election will begin from North Bengal’s Cooch Behar on June 26. More details of the TMC party’s campaigning are yet to be finalised.
The election will be held in a single phase on July 8, with vote counting scheduled for July 11.
Panchayat polls in West Bengal will witness a fierce contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Trinamool Congress as they will be seen as a litmus test ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
As the state witnessed sporadic violence between two groups of Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers ahead of panchayat polls and following the violence, the state election commission, on Thursday requisitioned 800 companies of central forces to be deployed in the State during the panchayat polls, in accordance with the Calcutta High Court’s directions, though the BJP says this is also insufficient.
There has been a war of words between the parties of the state accusing each other.