KMC polls: TMC wins 134 wards, decimates Opposition

The Trinamool Congress has swept Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections, returning to regulate the civic body for a third consecutive term.

Amid allegations raised by the parties in opposition against the ruling Trinamool, city police and the state election commission, Trinamool has successfully won 134 seats of the 144 wards. The BJP has won three seats. The Left and the Congress won two seats each, and three seats went to independent candidates.

Trirnamool supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee gave voters the credit for the party’s ‘landslide’ victory. Much like the last assembly elections, the city polls, too, have been put forward as a mandate against the rest of the parties that form the opposition in the state.

The Trinamool is also observing the strong result in the framework of national politics, where the BJP, the Congress and the CPI(M) are important players. Mamata said that the victory must also be viewed in the context of national politics as other national parties also contested the election but have been defeated.

The BJP, the Congress and the Left have remained unhappy with the outcomes. Leaders of the Left and the BJP had already approached court a day earlier on the issue of the polls. While the Left candidates apparently stood second in most of the wards, the gulf between the Trinamool and second contestants is largely wide. Of the percentage of votes in the sixteen boroughs that comprise wards, the Trinamool has secured the most votes.

Mamata added that the ‘landslide’ victory is because “we are the son, the daughter of the soil” and work “on land”, and do not suggest “working in the sky”, indirectly hitting at the absence of ground-support for the parties in the opposition, especially BJP.

Before she left for Guwahati, Mamata told the press that the mandate will help Trinamool in working for the development of the people and the party will work more humbly.

After Kolkata, it will be the turn of other municipal bodies in the state for elections. The BJP had initially demanded that elections be held simultaneously for all the municipal bodies in the state.

The Trinamool’s thumping victory, leaders feel, is the certification that people are standing with the party that is now on the lookout for expansion in different states – Goa, Tripura, and Meghalaya.

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