TMC reconsolidates base, BJP loses ground to Cong
Malda: With the declaration of the results of the Panchayat polls 2023, Malda witnessed the victory of Trinamool Congress (TMC) thereby consolidating their base while BJP lost ground to Congress which got the second spot in the district. The result is being viewed as a comeback of the Congress in its so-called bastion, pushing behind the BJP.
TMC bagged 34 Zilla Parishad (ZP) seats out of 43 along with 10 Panchayat Samities (PS) out of 15 and 59 Gram Panchayats (GP) out of 146. In 2018 TMC managed to bag the same number of GPs.
In the case of PS, TMC retained their hold on 10 and grabbed 34 seats in ZP out of 43 which was 29 out of 37 in the 2018 election. At the GP level, TMC also managed to increase their seats by nearly 2% in comparison with the previous election in Malda. But at the PS level, TMC lost more than 2% seats compared to 2018 though retaining their hold in the same number of PS. But at the ZP level the increase of TMC is around 1%.
On the other hand, Congress bagged 691 of 3180 seats at the GP level, more than 4% from the previous poll when it got only 398 seats among 2281 of the total seats. At the PS level, the leap of Congress is remarkable with a jump of almost 16% securing 91 seats among 436 which was 53 out of 423 in 2018 though they had CPI(M) in tow this time. Even Congress got 5 ZP seats this time and had managed only 2 last time.
BJP seems to be the loser this time with cramps on every tier of Panchayat, i.e. more than 5% seats at GP level, over 4% at the PS level and 2 seats at ZP. The saffron brigade has lost their hold on tribal-dominated blocks like Habibpur, Bamangola, and Old Malda.
Now all eyes are set on 64 GPs and 4 PS which are hung. The district is also going to see a new Sabhadhipati for the Malda Zilla Parishad as the post is reserved for women (SC).
The probable competitors for the post are Mungli Choudhury of Chanchal, Kabita Mandal of Manikchak, Sagarika Sarkar from Gazole and Lipika Ghosh Barman of English Bazar.
Abdur Rahim Boxi, District president of TMC, said: “The credit goes to Mamata Banerjee, for her diligent work for the people.”
