Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday registered a landslide victory in the Kolkata civic polls, winning 134 of the 144 wards, bagging 72 per cent of the votes. The BJP, which had emerged as the main opposition party in the Assembly polls earlier this year, won three seats, while the Left Front and Congress won two each. The Independents, with three seats, ended on an equal footing with the non-TMC parties.
In terms of vote share, the Left did better than the BJP as it finished ahead of the saffron camp.
TMC bettered its performance since the 2021 Assembly elections in which it had got 59.03 per cent votes in Kolkata.
Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee thanked "Ma, Mati, Manus" for their overwhelming support. "Our responsibility has gone up and we will keep all our promises. Kolkata will show the path to the entire nation," she said before leaving for Assam to offer her prayers at the Kamakhya temple.
"It is a victory of democracy and the people. The election was held like a festival. People exercised their franchise peacefully," Banerjee added.
TMC national general-secretary Abhishek Banerjee congratulated the people of Kolkata for supporting the party. "There is no place for violence and politics of hate in Bengal," remarked Banerjee.
Partha Chatterjee, the Trinamool Congress secretary-general, congratulated the young candidates who got elected. "Our responsibility has gone up as we will have to guide them. The party wants a combination of old and new candidates to provide better amenities to people," he said.
Chatterjee added: "Existence of the BJP is at stake in Bengal. People have given them a befitting reply and made it very clear that divisive politics has no role to play in Bengal."
In 65 seats, the Left Front has come as a distant second with BJP ensuring the same spot in 47 seats and Congress in 16 seats. In the outgoing civic board, BJP had seven seats. The vote percentage of BJP fell drastically with the saffron party getting 9.3 per cent of votes and the number of seats dropped to three from seven. The opposition could not reach a double-digit.
As many as 116 BJP candidates along with 112 Congress, 97 Left Front and 406 Independent candidates lost their deposits, according to State Election Commission sources. The Left Front got an 11.7 per cent vote after bagging two seats. Of these seats, CPI(M) candidate Madhuchanda Deb was elected from ward 82 while CPI candidate Nandita Roy was elected from ward 102.
Two veteran TMC councillors Atin Ghosh and Paresh Pal got elected by creating a record of winning the civic elections since 1985 when the Mayor-in-Council system was first introduced. Mala Roy, TMC MP was elected for the sixth consecutive time.
Children of the ministers won the civic elections by a huge margin. Saurav Basu, son of Chandrima Bhattacharya, the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister won. Puja Panja, daughter of Shashi Panja, state Minister for Women and Child Development and Social Welfare was also elected. Sandipan Saha, son of Swarnakamal Saha and Faiz Ahmed Khan, son of Javed Khan, minister for Disaster Management and Civil Defence won the polls by a huge margin. Khan won the election with a record margin of over 62,000 votes. Sana Ahmed, daughter of Iqbal Ahmed, also registered a win.
Kajari Banerjee, sister-in-law of Mamata Banerjee was elected from ward 73. Mamata Banerjee got the sitting councillor Ra-tan Malakar replaced and nominated Kajari. Almost all the 64 women candidates registered wins.
Three Independent candidates who got elected from wards 135, 141 and 143 have expressed their willingness to join Trinamool Congress.