Left Front Sweeps Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad Polls

   B Prasant

THE West Bengal Left Front has dominated the elections in the three-tier polls to the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad, getting more seats and more support all the way.  The Left Front has won all the seven Mahakuma Parishad seats and by big margins. 

In the Gram Panchayat tier, the Left Front has won more than 60 per cent of the seats, leaving the opposition Congress, Trinamul Congress and BJP trailing far behind in the wake. Two seats resulted in hung results.

At the Panchayat Samity level, the Left Front has captured 41 out of the 64 seats that were contested. The Congress won in 20 while the BJP and the Trinamul Congress, facing a rout, won one seat each. There was no election for one seat.

Big processions were taken out around the Siliguri Mahakuma in celebration of the Left Front victory. State CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas has congratulated the people for voting massively in favour of the Left Front.

In the civic polls to 18 municipalities and corporations that were held on June 27, the following results in terms of wards won were obtained.

In all, the Left Front could increase its share by 28 seats. The Congress has won three more than it did in 1999. However, the Trinamul Congress has received a jolt with 24 seats less than the last time around.

Not one known for putting out correct figures and facts, Trinamul chief Ms Mamata Banerjee claimed that her party “has lost out only in two more seats than the last time around.” She threatened to lead a deputation to the president of India regarding the latest civic bodies elections held in Bengal. Earlier, she was the butt of pungent criticism from her party leadership at a meeting where she was accused as chiefly responsible for the Trinamul Congress’s decline. She also threatened to call a Bangla bandh on the issue of polls.

Reacting to Ms Banerjee’s accusation that the CPI(M) was “out to finish her party,” Anil Biswas quipped that she herself was good enough reason why her party was unravelling at all levels. Biswas added to say that earlier, Ms Mamata Banerjee had always threatened to “reveal all as far as the polls are concerned” before the union home minister. She now speaks of the president. “Subsequently she may think in terms of approaching the secretary general of the United Nations,” mused Anil Biswas.