The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) welcomed the Supreme Court’s verdict on the uncontested seats in the panchayat polls in West Bengal and described it as a “historic victory” for the party.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the pleas by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking a re-poll in 20,698(35.26 %) seats in the three-tier panchayats of the State, for which the Opposition parties could not file nomination.
“It’s a historic victory. In a nutshell the CPI-M, Congress and BJP received a tight slap from the Supreme Court. We will start training for the elected members of (the uncontested seats) within a week,” said the State’s panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee.
The Minister also said that the Opposition parties should apologise to the people for making such “baseless allegations” against the TMC government.
The verdict generated mixed reactions from the Opposition parties. While the BJP leadership said that they “accept” the verdict, the CPI-M leadership described it as “surprising”.
“We accept the Supreme Court’s verdict and will continue to fight against the TMC democratically in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” said BJP State President Dilip Ghosh.
The CPI-M State leadership expressed its reservations about the verdict.
“We cannot find any similarity between the Supreme Court’s observation during the hearing and this verdict. Can anyone deny that 34% of the voters (in Panchayat areas) were denied from exercising their franchise? It is a surprising verdict,” said. Rabin Deb, senior member of the CPI-M State secretariat, the highest decision-making body of the party in the State. Earlier the Supreme Court expressed its reservations about the uncontested seats.
Pointing out that the Congress never approached the Supreme Court seeking re-poll in the uncontested panchayat seat, State Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said “not only 34% of the seats in Panchayat polls but polling even in the rest of seats was marred with terror and violence and democracy was murdered.”
