Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress has retained all the 20 Zilla Parishads under its control, the best performance since the inception of the party on January 1, 1998. In Gram Panchayats, the party has bagged 21,110 seats out of 31,814 in which election was held. In Panchayat Samity, the TMC got 4,888 seats where voting was held in 6,125 seats.
Expressing her gratitude to the rural people for their overwhelming support to the Trinamool Congress, party chief Mamata Banerjee tweeted quoting an immortal line from a popular Rabindranath Tagore song: "Amar matha Noto kore dao he tomar choron dular tole." Of the 20 districts where the three-tier Panchayat election was held, there is no opposition in nine districts.These are Jalpaiguri, Hooghly, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Bankura, West Burdwan, East Burdwan, North and South 24-Parganas. In Cooch Behar, an Independent candidate has bagged one Zilla Parishad seat.
The final tally stated that the Trinamool Congress has bagged 21,110 Gram Panchayat seats followed by the BJP with 5747 seats, CPI(M) 1477, Congress 1,062 seats and Independent candidates have won 1,830 seats.
In the Panchayat Samity, the Trinamool secured 4,888 seats followed by BJP with 756 seats while CPI(M), Congress and Independent candidates got 111, 131 and 114 seats respectively. In Zilla Parishads, the Trinamool got 589 seats followed by BJP having 22 seats while Left Front, Congress and others got 1, 6 and 2 seats respectively.
Like the Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samity, BJP finished the race with a distant second position having won 22 out of a total of 621 seats. The result shows that in ZP, BJP could not put up any fight as it is not existent in nine districts.
The Trinamool's performance is best since the inception of the party. In 2008, the party bagged two Zila Parishads, namely, East Midnapore and South 24-Parganas. In 2013 Panchayat election, it could not get the Zilla Parishad in Malda, Murshidabad along with some other districts. In 2013, the TMC had won 13 Zilla Parishads out of 17. The party could not secure any seats in Malda, Murshidabad, Jalpaiguri and North Dinajpur.
The full result of the three-tier Panchayat polls which was announced by the State Election Commission on Friday clearly shows that the CPI(M) and Congress have become insignificant in Bengal politics.
The CPI(M) which first conducted the Panchayat elections in1978 after coming to power in 1977, has managed to clinch only 1 seat in the Zilla Parishad. In Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samity, the party has bagged 1,477 and 111 seats.
The Congress' position is equally bad but slightly better than the CPI(M). In Zilla Parishad, the Congress bagged 6 seats while in Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samity the party candidates got only 1062 and 131 seats respectively. The result shows the routing of these two parties in their strongholds. The CPI(M) could not win a single seat in Jalpaiguri, Hooghly, Bankura and North 24-Parganas which were once considered to be their stronghold. Similarly, the Congress has been routed from Malda and Murshidabad. Malda rose to fame due to A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury and the party has two MPs. In 2016 Assembly election, the Trinamool Congress could not bag a single seat and two of its ministers — Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury and Sabitri Mitra — lost the election. But over the years, the TMC consolidated its position in rural Bengal massively.
Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool Congress secretary general, said the people of rural Bengal have voted for massive development which has been carried out in the past seven years. "It was a battle between development and canards in which the first won convincingly," he maintained.