Fewer candidates withdrew panchayat poll nominations than in 2018: Bengal SEC

The division bench of chief justice T S Sivagnanam had asked the SEC to file a report after several petitions were filed by Opposition parties alleging that hundreds of candidates were threatened and forced to withdraw by workers of the ruling Trinamool Congress

Only 9.03% of candidates for the July 8 three-tier panchayat polls in West Bengal withdrew nomination by the June 20 deadline, the state election commission (SEC) informed the Calcutta high court on Thursday, adding that the corresponding figure stood at 17.66% in the last polls held in 2018.

(Representative Photo)

The division bench of chief justice T S Sivagnanam had asked the SEC to file a report after several petitions were filed by Opposition parties alleging that hundreds of candidates were threatened and forced to withdraw by workers of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Reacting to the data furnished before the court by SEC, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] alleged that comparing five-year-old figures with new ones cannot justify the ongoing violence which has so far claimed 11 lives and injured dozens since June 9, when the filing of nomination started.

“The violence does not show any change in the pattern West Bengal has gotten used to by now. The figures don’t mean anything because lots of dummy candidates have been put up by the ruling party to project that polls will be fair,” said Bengal BJP’s former president Rahul Sinha.

CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty alleged that many did not file nominations as they were stopped, threatened and assaulted by the TMC goons.

“Can SEC also tell the court how many people could not file nomination papers because they were threatened and assaulted? The question of withdrawal comes after that,” CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said.

Meanwhile, dismissing the allegations raised by the Opposition, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said, “Never before did opposition parties field so many candidates. They are shouting only to draw media attention because they don’t have the political strength to win.”

The elections will be held at three-tier panchayats in 20 districts and two-tier panchayats in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. The official results will be announced on July 11, three days after polling.

According to figures compiled by SEC, 206,295 people, including independent candidates, are contesting for the control of 73,887 seats across the three tiers.

In gram panchayats, where the number of candidates is 63,229, the highest among the three tiers, the TMC is contesting 61,591 seats, followed by the BJP with 38,475 candidates and the CPI(M) with 35,411 nominees. Congress is contesting only 11,774 gram panchayat seats.

In the 2018 single-phase election, TMC won 34% eats uncontested, whereas 23 people died during the election process. Of them, 12 were killed on the day of polling even as the state government said sporadic violence during the election claimed only six lives.

This year, more than 9.5% seats have already been won uncontested with TMC accounting for the biggest chunk of these seats spread across gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads.

On Wednesday, the division bench of the chief justice ordered the SEC to file a report by July 3 on how it plans to deploy central armed police forces (CAPF) across Bengal before the polls.

On June 15, the division bench ordered that CAPF must be deployed across the state amid polling and ongoing violence across the state.

The SEC informed the division bench on Wednesday that although it had sought 822 companies of CAPF from the Centre, 458 companies were yet to arrive in Bengal.

The Calcutta high court had directed the poll panel to deploy more central forces than deployed during the 2013 panchayat polls. At least 82,000 security force personnel were deployed in 2013.