The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has fielded 85,817 candidates, the number of nominations, for the July 8 three-tier panchayat polls in Bengal’s 20 districts and two-tier polls in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts, the state election commissioner (SEC) announced on Friday, hours after the last day for filing nominations witnessed four deaths and sporadic violence in North Dinajpur and South 24 Parganas district.
With 56,321 nominations, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came second in the number of people in the fray, followed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] with 48,648 candidates and the Congress with 17,750 nominees, according to SEC.
The Aam Aadmi Party, which has virtually no presence in Bengal, has filed 13 nominations and the number of independent candidates is 16293, the SEC said.
Also Read: ‘Political violence will not to be tolerated’: West Bengal governor in Bhangore
According to the data released by the SEC, there are 61,636 polling booths in panchayat areas for 63,229 gram panchayat seats, 9,730 panchayat samiti seats and 928 zilla parishad seats. The number of voters in the state is 56.7 million.
Amid allegations that many opposition candidates could not file nomination papers following the state-wide violence even after the Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered the police to escort some of these people to the nomination centres, the TMC emerged uncontested winner at around 20 panchayat samitis in Hooghly, East Burdwan and Bankura districts.
{{/usCountry}}Amid allegations that many opposition candidates could not file nomination papers following the state-wide violence even after the Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered the police to escort some of these people to the nomination centres, the TMC emerged uncontested winner at around 20 panchayat samitis in Hooghly, East Burdwan and Bankura districts.
{{/usCountry}}“West Bengal never witnessed this sort of free and fair filing of nomination. But what can be done if the opposition cannot find candidates? We cannot procure candidates for them,” TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said.
The filing of nominations commenced on June 9. Scrutiny of nominations will be done on Saturday and the last day for withdrawal is June 20. The votes will be counted on July 11.
In the last 2018 panchayat polls, Bengal witnessed widespread violence and around 20 murders with TMC bagging around 90% seats, of which 34% were uncontested.
Citing the past and fresh violence that erupted after the elections were notified, the BJP and the Congress moved the division bench of the Calcutta high court chief justice on June 9, seeking the deployment of Central paramilitary forces.
Making strong remarks against the SEC, the division bench on Thursday asked the poll body to seek paramilitary force battalions from the Centre within 48 hours and deploy them in every part of the state.
At least four people were killed across West Bengal on Thursday, on a day when the Calcutta high court ordered the deployment of central forces all over the state till the elections end.
Bengal BJP chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said, “Hundreds of our candidates could not file nominations in North and South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad and Birbhum districts. Many of those who succeeded are now being pressured to withdraw from the race but our party will not give in to such tactics.”
Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury made similar allegations.
“Not just TMC workers, even a few policemen called up some of our candidates and asked them to withdraw,” he said.
“Some stray incidents of intimidation may have taken place but overall, this panchayat election will be completely different from the ones held in the past. Opposition parties should face the polls without fear,” transport minister Snehasish Chakraborty told a news channel on Friday night.