Trinamool Congress leads in West Bengal panchayat polls in early trends

Birbhum (West Bengal) [India]: Trinamool Congress has gained early leads in the results of panchayat polls in West Bengal. The counting began this morning.

According to trends and results on State Election Commission site, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has won in 942 seats and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 103 seat while Congress has secured 26 seats so far. The trends show TMC leading in 2590 panchayat seats and BJP in 664.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has won 47 seats and is leading in 558.
The polling on July 8 saw violence and there was repoll on 696 booths.

Votes for the Gram Panchayats are being counted along with that for Zilla Samitis and Zilla Parishads.

Officials said the counting centres will have an adequate deployment of security forces and CCTV cameras have also been installed.

Earlier security personnel opened lathi charge to disperse a large number of people who gathered outside a polling station in Howrah. They were reportedly attempting to enter the counting centre.

BJP MLA from Asansol South constituency Agnimitra Paul alleged that there are inputs of BJP counting agents not being allowed at a few counting centres.

She also slammed the ruling Trinamool Congress over violence in the panchayat polls.
“…people were murdered in this Panchayat election and our CM & ‘Bhaipo’ who made tall claims that this will be a peaceful election have not made any statement. There was firing & bombing in my constituency, there was bogus voting. So, we have no expectations with this election…There are inputs of BJP counting agents not being allowed at a few counting centres…I am sitting here and I have received information that they will attack here by this afternoon…,” she said.

The polls, which were billed as a test of the popularity of the Mamata Banerjee government in light of multiple arrests in connection with the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam, saw violence in which at least 10 people were killed.

The panchayat elections were held on July 8 with approximately 5.67 crore voters deciding the fates of 2.06 lakh candidates.