Seven months after its landslide victory in the West Bengal assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee-led TMC on Tuesday again witnessed a thumping win as the party retained power in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation by winning 134 wards out of the 144 in the KMC polls. Addressing the media outside her Kalighat residence, West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee showed a victory sign and called it a “national mandate”. Later, she went to attend a Pujo being held in Assam.
“It’s a national mandate as other national parties also contested with Left and BJP and we have won, people have given a clear mandate, the vote took place in a festive mood and we are indebted to people,” Banerjee told reporters outside her residence.
Out of 144 wards, the BJP got 3, Congress bagged 2, Left Front got 2 and IND won 3. The counting of votes for KMC polls began this morning at 8 am. The KMC is divided into 144 administrative wards, which are grouped into 16 boroughs. The TMC has been in power in KMC since 2010. In the last KMC polls in 2015, TMC had won 124 seats, whereas the Left Front bagged 13. The BJP and the Congress had secured five and two seats, respectively.
Though it was the polling for Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the TMC supremo believes that the mandate was national as she projected how in this fight the Congress, Left, BJP were together and faced defeat.
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee also thanked the people of Kolkata for the huge mandate. “People of Kolkata have once again proven that politics of HATE & VIOLENCE have NO PLACE in BENGAL! I thank everyone for blessing us with such a huge mandate. We are truly humbled and shall always remain committed in our goals towards YOUR BETTERMENT! Thank you Kolkata,” he tweeted.
All Opposition parties in the state, including BJP and Congress, have called the KMC election “farce”. Speaking to News18, BJP vice-president Dilip Ghosh said, “Is this vote? This is a farce, it is totally undemocratic, we don’t accept this. In Tripura, they did not have a candidate, here they did not allow to vote.”
This win again has brought in the comparison of Tripura and West Bengal. The TMC has also planned to take this win to Tripura from a different perspective. On one hand, when Bengal opposition is on roads of Kolkata protesting against violence in the Kolkata Corporation Election, the TMC too is on roads in Tripura protesting against violence in municipal polls in Tripura.
Abhishek Banerjee is also expected to visit Tripura on January 2 to meet those injured during the municipal polls.
The Kolkata Corporation election took place on December 19. The BJP, Left and Congress have complained that massive violence took place during polling and they blamed the TMC, state government and Election Commission for failing to control it. The BJP has also moved to court seeking repoll of KMC elections.
In Tripura, the TMC now will be on with rallies to project that democracy is not there in the state and the violence took place during municipal polls. Speaking to News18, TMC leader Rajib Banerjee said, “No one should compare between violence in Tripura and Bengal, whatever they have done here full-fledged violence, where have you seen in Bengal that candidates have not been allowed to campaign, they have been intimidated. Tripura violence is totally different BJP is doing drama.”
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