SC to decide fate of 34.2% uncontested seats in West Bengal Panchayat polls

New Delhi: After three months of the three-tier Panchayat polls in West Bengal, the Apex court will decide the fate of the 1/3rd uncontested seats on Wednesday.

The recent elections made headlined over reported political crossovers and the ruling Trinamool Congress' victory in 73 per cent of the Gram Panchayat seats, 90 per cent of the Panchayat Samiti seats and 99 per cent of the Zilla Parishad seats in the polls. The party also won 34.8 per cent of the seats uncontested.

However, the Chief Justice of India, Deepak Mishra expressed 'shock' over the statistics of 20,076 uncontested seats out of 58,692. During the second hearing at the top court on Tuesday, the CJI further snubbed the state election commission for its 'reluctant' behaviour as it failed to submit an appropriate report to the SC.

The oppositions Left and BJP had claimed blocks during the filing of nominations and urged both the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court to intervene in the first week of May. The elections marred by violence and cost more than 24 people their lives on 14th of that month.

The Bharatiya Janata Party further submitted a list of the uncontested seats to the apex court and on the basis of that list, CJI Mishra asked the West Bengal EC secretary Nilanjan Sandilya to submit a district-wise report.

"It is shocking! a few hundred can be understood, but this is in thousand," the CJI told senior counsel Amarendra Sharan, who represented the state EC and further directed to provide an exact statistics by today. The final hearing will commence at 2.00 pm.

Furthermore, the CJI asserted, "Why have you come here wasting public money without collecting proper data?" while the former ASG Sharan failed to submit a proper report. The top court also said that a large number of uncontested suggests that chapter 9 of Constitution on grassroots-level democracy is not working.

Statistics released by the State Election Commission revealed that of the 48,650-Gram Panchayat seats in the state, TMC has already bagged 16,814. The fate of 3,059 Panchayat Samiti seats and 203 Zilla Parishad seats have also been decided without a contest.