Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) continued to reign supreme in West Bengal as it swept the Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections by securing 134 seats out of 144. The principal opposition party in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won three seats. The Left and the Congress won two each.
The results were announced Tuesday, and West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee waved the victory sign outside her residence, telling the gathered media, “We are thankful to maa, maati, manush. I bow my head before the people and we will continue our work. Kolkata will show the way to the rest of the country.” She later left for Assam where she visited Kamakhya temple.
The polls were held Sunday, with a turnout of 40.5 lakh voters. While the TMC secured a total of 18,87,422 votes, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) emerged as runners-up with 2,52,610, leaving behind the BJP with 2,41,053 votes. The TMC’s vote share increased by 11 per cent from the West Bengal Assembly elections in May 2021, while BJP’s plunged by 20 per cent.
The TMC scored 22 per cent more votes this time than in the previous Kolkata civic polls held in 2015, when it won 124 seats. The BJP won 6 per cent fewer votes than last time. The TMC has remained in power in the richest civic body in West Bengal since 2010.
The TMC’s outgoing mayor, Firhad Hakim, won from Ward 82 and later celebrated his victory on an open-top bus with his family and supporters. Prominent party leaders Mala Roy, Atin Ghosh, and Debashish Kumar all won their contests, while Mamata’s sister-in-law Kajari Banerjee now officially begins her political innings after winning in Ward 73.
Mamata will hold a meeting on 23 December to pick the next mayor.
BJP washed out
The BJP, which has lost its momentum since the Assembly elections in May, was missing its star campaigners from New Delhi. The majority of the campaigns for the civic polls were led by BJP state president Dr Sukanta Majumdar, leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari, and national vice president Dilip Ghosh. This was the first electoral challenge for Majumdar, who was appointed president on 20 September after the Assembly polls.
Majumdar told ThePrint, “There is no democracy in West Bengal. What the media is calling a vote is a farce. There was widespread rigging, opposition voices were muzzled. The TMC has created an illusion by helping the CPI(M) secure second position. We will continue to fight against the TMC and remove them from power.”
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
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