In jolt for Bengal Oppn, SC rules out Panchayat repoll

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: The Supreme Court, in a major judgment on Friday, approved the winning candidates on uncontested seats in West Bengal Panchayat polls and allowed the State Election Commission to notify them. It is a huge relief to the incumbent Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has won these seats unopposed in the month of May.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said the state stood vindicated by the Supreme Court’s verdict and hailed it as a “victory of democracy”.

She said at Nabanna: “This is a victory of democracy. The CPI(M), Congress and BJP worked together during the Panchayat elections to humiliate Bengal. The trio resorted to falsehood, propaganda and conspiracy to malign our state. The verdict given by the Supreme Court today is a proof of that.”

The Chief Minister further added: “We are trying to form an allied opposition (against the BJP) in Delhi. But in Bengal CPI(M), Congress and BJP are working together. They tried to malign us over the number of uncontested seats during the Panchayat polls. But there were many rural body elections across the country that had more number of uncontested seats… In states like Arunachal and Sikkim, close to 80 Gram Panchayat seats were uncontested in previous elections. Even in Uttar Pradesh, 67 percent seats were uncontested. There were uncontested seats during Panchayat elections in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh. But some people tried to humiliate Bengal without looking at these data.”

Stating that there are certain factors on which the Panchayat election depends, she said: “One must know the same before passing any comment… There are various local factors involved in this.”