The Opposition parties in Bengal said on Tuesday that they are confident of completing the nominations for rural polls within the stipulated time announced by the state poll panel as they have already filed a significant number of nominations on the first three days till Monday.
According to data available with the state election commission, the BJP has filed nominations in 27.76 per cent of the total of 73,887 seats in the three tiers of panchayat system till Monday. The CPM has filed nominations in 23.74 per cent of the total seats and the Congress in 5.37 per cent till Monday.
Sources in the state election commission said the exact figure of the number of nominations filed by the Opposition parties till Tuesday was not available. However, sources said the trends were healthy enough for the BJP and the CPM and hence the number of uncontested seats this time would be fewer than those in 2018.
Senior bureaucrats, who handled panchayat elections in 2018, also asserted that the figures were much better compared to the last panchayat polls where the Opposition parties could not field candidates in 33.21 per cent of seats.
“Last time (in 2018), the ruling party won 16,161 seats uncontested out of 48,650 gram panchayat seats. This year, the number of gram panchayat seats has increased to 63,229. But the number of nominations filed by the Opposition parties on the first three days clearly suggests that the percentage of uncontested seats will be much lower than last time,” said a senior bureaucrat.
Sources in the BJP said that with two more days left for nominations, the party will try to complete nominations in at least 70 per cent of the seats in the three-tier panchayat system.
“It appears that filing nominations in 30 per cent of the seats will be a challenge as our organisation is weak in the seats which are minority dominated in districts like Murshidabad, parts of Malda, Birb-hum and North 24-Parganas,” a senior BJP leader told TheTelegraph.
However, the CPM and the Congress are filing nominations in large numbers in the areas that have a significant minority population.
The BJP and the CPM leaders alleged facing resistance from Trinamul cadres while filing nominations in some areas, but added that they succeeded in fielding candidates in most areas without much trouble.
“There are areas where we are being prevented from filing nominations, but it is not as widespread as it had been in the 2018 panchayat polls,” the BJP leader said.
Sources in the administration and political parties said there are three reasons behind the Opposition’s success in fil-ing nominations for this year’s panchayat elections.
First, the state election commission has taken a proactive role to ensure a level playing field for the Opposition parties at the grassroots.
“The commission has responded to each complaint lodged by us and has taken action to ensure that we can file nominations. Clamping prohibitory orders within a 1km radius of the nomination venues has also apparently worked in large areas,” said a BJP leader.
Second, Trinamul’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has been repeatedly instructing his party cadres to ensure that Opposition parties were not prevented from filing their nominations.
Third, as Trinamul did not announce the list of its candidates for the rural polls till Tuesday, many party cadres were busy trying to ensure tickets for themselves instead of preventing candidates from the Opposition parties from filing nominations.
“The Opposition parties even went to court demanding an extension in the nomination window, but now they are saying they can complete the process by June 15... The high court also did not like to interfere in the matter. It means the Opposition parties were unnecessarily trying to create an issue ahead of the panchayat polls,” said a senior Trinamul leader.
