Kolkata: The ruling Trinamool Congress has steamrolled to a massive victory in West Bengal’s violence-scarred rural polls, bagging all zila parishads and leaving its rivals trailing way behind in results declared by the State Election Commission. The TMC won all 20 Zila Parishads in the three-tier panchayat system, winning a straight 880 seats, while its nearest rival BJP won 31 seats out of 928 seats. The Congress-Left front alliance won 15 seats while others won 2 remining seats.
The TMC has won over 35,000 gram panchayat seats, out of the 63,219 gram panchayat seats. However though the counting was over exact figures were not known as compilation and dissemination process was not complete said officials.
The ruling party’s nearest rival BJP has won nearly 10,000 seats. While the Left-Congress alliance won over approximately 6,000 seats.
Polling was held for 73,887 seats in zilla parishads, panchayat samitis, and gram panchayats at 339 venues across 22 districts of the state. Altogether 2.06 lakh candidates were in the fray. According to experts, the 2023 panchayat elections reflected the image of 2018 when there was widespread violence and booth capturing. The counting began at 8 am, and it is likely to continue for two days.
