The Trinamool Congress has won all seven urban local body elections that were held in West Bengal on Sunday. The results were announced on Thursday. The Bharatiya Janata Party finished second, PTI reported. Of the total 148 wards, the Trinamool Congress won 140 and the BJP six. The Left Front won one vote and an independent the other.
Among the Left parties, the one ward was won by Forward Bloc, while the Communist Party of India Marxist and the Congress did not win any.
Poll watchers have said that the results are indicative of a paradigm shift in the state’s politics, with the Bharatiya Janata Party making its presence felt and emerging as a stronger rival to the Trinamool Congress than the Left parties.
“The results are a reflection of people’s faith in the Trinamool Congress government,” the party’s secretary general Partha Chatterjee was quoted as saying. Senior leader Gautam Deb said that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s presence is not a worry, as “the Left Front has shifted its vote to the BJP...the vote share of the Trinamool Congress is intact, rather we have increased ours”.
The other parties, however, called the elections “a farce”. State Bharatiya Janata Party President Dilip Ghosh accused the Trinamool Congress of using money and muscle power to win the elections. “We have seen how democracy was subverted by the TMC,” he said.
The Congress and the Left said the results were not a real reflection of the people’s mandate.
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