The ruling Trinamool Congress swept the West Bengal municipal polls on Saturday, registering a landslide victory by winning over 75 per cent of the wards of Bidhannagar and Asansol Municipal Corporations and the newly-added areas of the Howrah Municipal Corporation.
Though the TMC described the victory as “historic”, and a major boost to it before the 2016 Assembly polls, Opposition parties said that the results were not a reflection of the people’s mandate.
Elections to 163 wards in the three municipal bodies — Bidhannagar in North 24 Parganas district, Asansol in Bardhaman district and Bally in Howrah district — were held on October 3 amidst allegations by the Opposition of widespread violence and electoral malpractice.
Re-polling in 11 polling booths across six wards was held on Friday.
The ruling party annihilated the Opposition when results were declared during the day by winning 127 of the 163 wards that went to polls.
The TMC bagged 37 of the 41 wards in Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and obliterated the Opposition in the 16 wards of the erstwhile Bally municipality where the polls were held after the civic body was amalgamated with the Howrah Municipal Corporation.
In Asansol Municipal Corporation, TMC candidates won 74 seats. The Left Front managed 17 while the Bharatiya Janata Party had to remain content with eight wards. The Congress emerged victorious in just three.
An analysis of the percentage of votes polled for the ruling party shows that the TMC got 62 per cent of the votes in Bidhannagar, 75 per cent in Bally and 46 per cent in Asansol.
The Left Front’s decision to bring in the veteran leader Asim Dasgupta into the poll fray could not improve their political prospects. Mr. Dasgupta lost to the TMC candidate in Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation polls.
The results in the three civic bodies come as an embarrassment to the BJP, which failed to win a single seat in Bidhannagar where the party had an edge in the 2014 polls. In Asansol, which had voted for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the party won only eight wards and emerged in the third position in the seat tally.
