The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday registered a landslide victory in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections, winning 134 of the 144 wards.
While the BJP, which had emerged as the main opposition party in the Assembly polls earlier this year, won three seats, while the Left Front and Congress won two each. In terms of vote share, there was better news for the Left, as it finished ahead of the BJP.
The Independents, with three seats, ended an equal footing with the non-TMC parties.
The TMC got nearly three-fourths of the votes cast (71.95%), the Left Front 11.13% and BJP 8.94%. The Congress got just 4.47% of the votes, while 3.25% people voted for Independents.
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Congratulating TMC workers, West Bengal Chief Minister and party chief Mamata Banerjee said: “It is a victory of democracy and the people. The election was held like a festival. People exercised their franchise peacefully.”
The BJP called the results a farce. Spokesperson Sukanta Majumdar said: “We are surprised. The TMC should have won all the seats given the kind of violence and booth-rigging that took place.”
In 2015, when the KMC elections were last held, the TMC had won 124 wards, the Left 13, the BJP 5 and Congress 2.