In the backdrop of the Trinamul Congress winning in around 34.20 per cent seats in the three-tier panchayat elections uncontested, the West Bengal State Election Commission on Monday took stock of the overall security arrangement for conducting the rural elections in single phase on 14 May.
State Election Commissioner AK Singh held a high-level meeting with the state government to discuss security arrangement. Top home department officials, including director general of police Surajit Kar Purakayastha, home secretary Atri Bhattacharya and ADG law and order Anuj Sharma, met Mr Singh at the commission’s office at Rawdon Street.
The commissioner is learnt to have enquired about various security issues ranging from the status of the forces that have been requisitioned from other states and the basic security plan. The number of booths wherein polls would not be held following Trinamul Congress’s uncontested win was also discussed.
Force deployment has turned up to be the major concern for conducting polls in a single phase. The total strength of state forces is 58,000 of which 46,000 are armed forces. There are a total of 58,467 booths and the commission wants to deploy two armed personnel per very sensitive booth.
During a meeting with the commissioner on 28 April, Opposition parties had expressed grievances over the security arrangements for the single-phase polls. The commissioner had then said that he would talk to the state government and ensure proper security arrangements.
According to data released by the commission, TMC has won in 16814 out of 48650 seats uncontested at the gram panchayat level. In the panchayat samiti level, 3059 out of 9217 seats have been bagged uncontested and in the zilla parishad level, 203 out of 825 seats have been won uncontested by Trinamul Congress.
Thus in the three-tier panchayat elections the party has bagged a record win in 34.20 per cent seats in an uncontested manner.
Sources in the commission confirmed that this year’s uncontested figure has been the highest that the ruling party has earned since the last three panchayat polls. Records available with the commission revealed that in 2013, uncontested seats were 10.7 per cent of the total seats. In 2008, 5.6 per cent of the total seats were uncontested and in 2003, 11 per cent of the total seats were uncontested.
Figures have further revealed that the TMC filed higher nominations than the total number of seats in all the three tiers. In zilla parishad, the party filed 41 nominations more, in panchayat samity there were 966 more nominations and in gram panchayat there were 3,295 more nominations.
Also, TMC had filed 1,000 nominations for the zilla parishads, followed by the BJP with 782. The CPI(M) and the Congress had filed 537 and 407 nominations respectively. There were 134 withdrawals in the Trinamul camp, followed by the BJP with 153 withdrawals, the CPI-M with 79 and the Congress with 54.
For the panchayat samitis, the Trinamul had filed 12,590 nominations, the BJP 6,149, the CPI-M 4,400 and the Congress 1,740.Of these, there were 2,407 withdrawals by the TMC, 931 by the BJP, 558 by the CPI-M and 301 by the Congress.
For the gram panchayats, TMC had filed 58,978 nominations, BJP 27,935, the CPI-M 17,319 and the Congress 7,313. 7,033 withdrawals by the TMC, 4,490 by BJP, 2,490 by CPI-M and 1,383 by the Congress.