West Bengal panchayat polls: State BJP chief sits on dharna, alleges TMC of ‘fabricating results’

Dakshin Dinajpur (West Bengal) [India]: West Bengal BJP President, Sukanta Majumdar, sat on a dharna (sit-in protest) outside a counting centre at Balurghat College under Dakshin Dinajpur district late on Tuesday night, alleging fabrication in Panchayat poll results, counting for which started earlier in the day.

Alleging the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) of fabricating the results, State BJP Chief Majumdar said that he will be opting for legal action in the matter. “Despite our candidates winning in the elections…the results are being fabricated. The ruling party has brought criminals inside the counting centre to help their candidates win by rigging the counting. The Block Development Officer (BDO) is biased and is an agent of TMC,” Majumdar said while speaking to reporters outside the counting center.

“I am here to meet the BDO, but he is not here…We will go for legal action,” he added.
The counting for 63,229 -Gram Panchayat seats began at 8 am on Tuesday and since the beginning TMC seems to leading the tally.

As the counting of votes for progressed in West Bengal, TMC maintained its early leads in the results.

TMC has won in 28,985 and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 7,764 seats while Congress has secured 2,022 seats so far. TMC was leading on 1,540 panchayat seats while BJP was leading on 417, according to the State Election Commission (SEC) as of 10.30 pm on Tuesday.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has won 2,409 seats and is leading in 260 seats. Other parties won 725 seats and leading on 23 seats, while independents which included TMC rebels won 1,656 seats and are maintaining a led in 104 seats.

Meanwhile, BJP on Tuesday also slammed TMC over violence during the panchayat polls calling it “state-sponsored” violence and claimed that at least 45 people have died in the clashes.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, while addressing a press conference said that these ‘killings’ are “institutional murder”.

“In West Bengal, elections and violence have become synonymous…Around 45 people have been killed as far as Panchayat polls in West Bengal are concerned. Words like firing, bombing, murder and vote rigging are being used for the Panchayat elections…This is not accidental, this is a state-sponsored murder of democracy.

It is an institutional murder, that is, from the police administration to the district officers and the administrative officers, everything is involved,” Patra said.

He further said that the party vehemently condemns the poll violence and “murder of democracy” in West Bengal. “Nirmam Bandyopadhyay (ruthless Mamata Banerjee), who used to talk ‘maa, maati, manush’, is being a mute spectator,” he added. Patra further lashed out at other parties accusing them to be ‘silent’ over the issue.

“Where is Rahul ji, there is no mention of your ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukan’, you want to open the shop of love all over India, today you are not talking about it because the mega mall of your aspirations is open there (West Bengal), he said.

Elections were held on July 8 under tight security, with approximately 5.67 crore voters participating and deciding the fate of 2.06 lakh candidates vying for 73,887 seats in rural areas of West Bengal.

However, the voting day was marred with widespread violence, looting of ballots papers and rigging. There were reports of booth capturing, damaging of ballot boxes and assault of presiding officers from several districts such as Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Malda, South 24 Parganas, North Dinajpur and Nadia.

Reports also emerged of ballot boxes being set on fire and clashes between political parties in different locations.

As a result, re-polling was conducted in 697 booths across 22 Zilla Parishads, 9,730 Panchayat Samitis, and 63,239 Gram Panchayat seats in 19 districts of the state. The re-polling process was conducted under the supervision of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) without any reports of violence.