‘At 37,565, BJP has highest number of nominations so far’

The figures of nominations for the Panchayat polls in the state available with the state Election Commission (SEC) have somewhat raised suspicion over the Opposition’s constant allegation of being prevented from filing nominations by the ruling Trinamool Congress.

As many as 93,425 nominations have been filed till June 13 (Tuesday) with BJP filing the highest number of nominations 37,565 followed by CPI(M) with 30,249.

The ruling Trinamool Congress has filed 9,328 nominations while Congress has filed 7,369.

“The nomination filing on the part of the Opposition has been quite good. They have filed nominations in 80,000 seats while we have done only 10,000. So how can they complain about being prevented from filing nominations? In the remaining two days (June 14 and 15) we will be filing nominations for the remaining seats,” Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said during his Nabajowar campaign at Canning on Wednesday.

The other registered parties like BSP, NPP, Forward Block, IND have filed 102, 1,765 and 4,310. AAP has not filed a single nomination while Others have filed 3,736.

The nominations started from last Friday and will be accepted till Thursday, June 15. The date for scrutiny of nominations has been scheduled on June 17 while the last date for withdrawal of candidature is June 20. The poll date has been fixed on July 8.

In the three-tier Panchayat system, the total number of seats in Gram Panchayat is 63,229 in Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad, the seats are 9,730 and 928 respectively. The total number of polling stations is 61636 with total voters being 5.67 crore.

The state Election Commission (SEC) has taken stringent measures for foolproof security during nomination filing that includes videography of the nomination filing process.

All district magistrates and police superintendents in Bengal have been asked to ban large gatherings around all Panchayat election nomination centres.

The SEC is allowing only two people inside a nomination centre for the filing.