While the Opposition parties, specially the BJP, are raising allegations of their candidates being prevented from filing nominations by ruling party activists, the nomination figures speak otherwise.
BJP filed 100 nominations more than the Trinamul Congress for panchyayat samiti On Monday, while a nearly equal number of nominations were filed by the CPI-M, according to the data available with the West Bengal State Election Commission (WBSEC).
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Trinamul Congress filed 239 nominations, while 339 nominations were filed by the BJP, 235 by the CPI-M and 163 by the Congress on 23 April for panchayat samiti. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, during an interview to a private television channel, said that the government wants election but the Opposition does not want and so they moved court.
“They (read Opposition) have lost ground and support base. So they are trying to foil the election. We are the ruling party. Why should we want violence? The Opposition wants violence as they have realised that they would lose the polls. We will win 100 per cent seats,” said Miss Banerjee. She also slammed a section of the media for making fake news as it did during 2016 Assembly polls.
On the issue of the West Bengal State Election Commission failing to fix the polling dates, Miss Banerjee said that the commission is an autonomous body and would decide the matter by itself.
Without naming former state election commissioner Mira Pandey who went against the state government over deployment of central forces in 2013, Miss Banerjee said, earlier there was a Left-minded commissioner but now the commissioner is working as per the norms of the Panchayat Act.
“I will not comment anything on the issue of poll dates,” she added. The extended day for nomination filing for the panch – ayat election was marred by violence On Monday leaving one person dead and several injured in clashes between ruling Trinamul Congress and Opposition members that erupted in various districts.
The Opposition members repeatedly alleged that the ruling party activists unleased violence as well as harassed and prevented them from filing nominations yesterday. Police today said that a total of 21 persons were arrested during the nomination filing process.
Trinamul Congress filed 12860 nominations (till 9 April and 23 April) for panchayat samiti seats, while BJP filed 6352, CPI-M 4509 and Congress 1807. For zilla parishad, 25 nominations were filed by Trinamul Congress, 71 by BJP, 22 by CPI-M and 53 by Congress On Monday.
The ruling party filed a total number of 1085 nominations. BJP filed 832, CPI-M 568 and Congress 430. Finally, for gram panchayat, Trinamul Congress nominations stands at 663, followed by BJP and CPI-M with 1077 and 759 respectively.
Congress filed 467 nominations. The total nominations filed by the ruling party were 59736. BJP filed 28696 nominations, followed by CPI-M with 17904 and Congress with 7649.
