TMC CELEBRATES SC RULING, OPPN PARTIES PUT UP BRAVE FACE

KOLKATA: The Supreme Court’s verdict on Friday rejecting the pleas of the BJP and the CPI (M) seeking cancellation of elections to over 20,000 uncontested local body seats in West Bengal has boosted the confidence of the ruling Trinamool Congress in the state, which now plans to take advantage of the ruling in the 2019 general elections.

“We have won all the zilla parishads. It’s a victory of the people. The opposition wanted to give a bad name to the people of Bengal,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said. She said her government had submitted it in the apex court that more seats are won uncontested in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

Political observer Amal Mukherjee said Friday’s order of the Supreme Court would greatly benefit Mamata Banerjee’s party before the elections, but he ticked off the TMC over the inability of many voters to exercise their right during the panchayat polls.

“Political battles are fought in the election fields. We will show Trinamool our might in 2019... About 75 people lost their lives in the run-up to the rural elections, and it is likely that the court did not order elections to avoid further bloodshed, BJP’s state unit president Dilip Ghosh said.

“The apex court has made it clear that the elections were not fair...,” remarked Sujan Chakraborty, leader of Left parties in the Bengal Assembly.

The Congress was not a party to the case in the apex court.