Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress sweeps West Bengal Municipal polls

Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee-led ruling Trinamool Congress on Wednesday headed for a massive victory in elections to 108 municipal bodies across West Bengal, where counting of votes was on.

The elections were held on February 27.

According to the latest results and trends, the Trinamool has already bagged 55 civic bodies, and is in the lead in most of the other municipalities.

The BJP, which had emerged as the main opposition party in the 2019 Lok Sabha and last year's assembly polls, with dominating performances in Northern West Bengal, came up with a poor performance, failing to lead in any of the municipal bodies.

As per an initial analysis, the BJP seems to be polling less percentage of votes than the Left Front, which won a majority in Taherpur Municipality in Nadia district.

It may be mentioned that in one Municipality - Dinhata in North Bengal's Cooch Behar district - all the Trinamool candidates were declared winners unopposed.

The Trinamool raced to an emphatic victory in East Medinipur district's Kanthi Municipality, henceforth considered a pocket borough of leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari and his family.

Adhikari crossed over to the BJP last year and defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram in the Assembly election. His father Sisir is officially the Trinamool MP from Kanthi, but his present political allegiance has been a matter of debate for long.

The BJP suffered another big setback in Kanthi, when its MLA from Uttar Kanthi Sushmita Sinha lost from Ward number 6.

The BJP also lost in West Medinipur district's Kharagpur Municipality, which is considered a stronghold of its national vice president Dilip Ghosh.

The former state party chief had won the Kaharagpur Asssembly seat in 2016, and emerged victorious from Medinipur in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Kharagpur is part of Ghosh's Lok Sabha constituency.

In Balurghat of South Dinajpur district, from where present state BJP President Sukanta Majumdar had won the Loik Sabha polls, the Trinamool emerged victorious in the civic poll. In fact, the ruling party even won from the ward in Balurgha municipality where Majumdar is a voter.

In North Bengal, the newly formed regional outfit Hamro Party pulled up a major surprise by capturing the Darjeeling municipality.

The Congress put up a pathetic show, crumbling in its long-time citadels of Murshidabad and Malda districts. Even the Baharampur Municipality, considered as an impregnable fortress of state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, went to the Trinamool.

An estimated 77 percent of voters had exercised their democratic rights during the polls on Sunday.

However, the opposition parties had described the elections as a "farce" on the day of the election itself, accusing the Trinamool of resorting to violence, booth capturing and false voting.

The BJP had in fact called a 12-hour bandh on Monday in protest against the "unprecedented violence, attacks, arson and complete failure of the law and order machinery". (UNI)