Trinamool Congress sweeps municipal corporation elections in West Bengal

Kolkata: West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress scored a landslide victory on Saturday in the civic polls.

The Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool won overwhelmingly in all the three municipal bodies - Bidhannagar in North 24 Parganas district, Asansol in Burdwan district and Bally in Howrah district.

The Trinamool bagged 37 of the 41 wards in Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and annihilated the opposition in the 16 wards of the erstwhile Bally municipality where an election was necessitated after the civic body was amalgamated with the Howrah Municipal Corporation.

In the Asansol Municipal Corporation, the candidates from the ruling party have either won or are leading with wide margins in at least 70 of the 106 wards.

The Left Front managed 16 while the Bharatiya Janata Party bagged eight wards. The Congress emerged victorious in just three.

At Bidhannagar, in the north eastern fringes of Kolkata, the Communist Party of India-Marxist led Left Front and the Congress won two wards each. Among the heavyweights to lose from here was veteran Marxist and former state minister Asim Dasgupta.

"This is not a reflection of the people mandate rather an evidence of the electoral malpractices indulged in by the ruling party," Dasgupta told mediapersons.

The opposition had alleged violence and rampant rigging in the October 3 polls, and demanded repoll in all the wards of the three civic bodies.

There was high drama as State Election Commissioner (SEC) S.R. Upadhyay deferred the vote count slated for October 7 and then put in his papers on Tuesday allegedly succumbing to pressure from political parties.

The state government appointed transport secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay as the interim commissioner, who ordered repoll on October 9 in 11 booths - 9 in Bidhannagar and two in Asansol.

Angry opposition parties boycotted the repoll.

A case was also filed challenging Bandopadhyay's appointment, and the Calcutta High Court on Friday directed that all steps initiated by the SEC under the new interim commissioner would be subject to the court's final verdict on the writ petition, but turned down a plea to give any interim stay.

Justice Dipankar Datta sought affidavits from the West Bengal government and the SEC backing their observations by November 17. The petitioner Amitava Majumdar was directed to file the affidavit in opposition by November 19.

November 23 has been fixed as the next day of hearing.