TMC BAGS 4 SEATS IN CIVIC POLLS
BREAKS GJM’S STRANGLEHOLD IN HILLS
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress cracked open a new vote base in the Darjeeling hills of her state while she swept 4 civic bodies on Wednesday.
For the first time in three decades, the party won a municipality (Mirik) in the bastion of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), an outfit that often demanded a separate Gorkhaland.
Trinamool’s latest victories also underline further decline of the Congress and the Left in Bengal. It also possibly indicates that the BJP has a long way to go to take on Banerjee’s party in the turf of Bengal.
The GJM, in alliance with the BJP, retained three other hill municipalities — Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong.
“After 32 years, for the first time a mainstream party has won in the hills. It’s a new, auspicious chapter in democracy,” Banerjee told HT in Delhi.
Trinamool also wrested the Raiganj civic body that was under Congress rule for 15 years. It also won Domkal and Pujali where the Left and the Congress joined hands.
The Left-Congress alliance suffered the biggest defeats. In Domkal municipality, the combine won three wards but within hours, two of the winners —Ashadul Islam and Rafiqul Islam — switched to the Trinamool.
The latest poll results come amid the BJP’s renewed thrust to expand its footprint in West Bengal. the state has 42 Lok Sabha seats but in the last general election the BJP got only two seats.
The victories are also expected to boost the Trinamool party against the BJP-led Centre even as many party leaders are facing corruption charges. Trinamool’s Lok Sabha floor leader and another MP is under arrest while the Calcutta High Court has ordered CBI probe into Narda sting operation.
State Congress president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the results are not a reflection of a genuine mandate. “Rather it is the reflection of blatant vote looting through intimidation of voters at gunpoint,” he said.
Left leader Sujan Chakraborty echoed Chowdhury. “It has been proved again that free and fair polls under this (Trinamool) government will never be possible in West Bengal”.
Former BJP state president Rahul Sinha said his party’s victory was certain in Pujali had there been no violence on poll day. “Even in Raigunj and Domkal, BJP’s results would have been better. It is the victory of hooliganism,” he said.
Banerjee, however, claimed that in three other hill seats, the combined votes of Trinamool and its partner GNLF is more than the GJM-BJP alliance.
“We had given the GNLF some seat,” Banerjee told HT, “If you count their votes, then we got more support from people in the hills.” In total, the GJM-BJP won 72 wards, or 46.6%, and the Trinamool won 68 (46%).
“It’s the victory of the demand for Gorkhaland,” said GJM president Bimal Gurung, who said the credit for the party’s win in the hills did not rest with him alone.
The seven civic bodies spanned across 148 wards that held elections on May 14.