CPM likely to bag 4,000 seats without contest

Express news service
Posted online: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 01:33:23

kolkata, April 22 The ruling CPM is likely to manage victory without a contest in nearly 4,000 gram panchayat seats in the first phase of panchayat elections. Like last year, the trend is being seen in Hooghly and West Midnapore districts on a large scale.

Hridesh Mohan, the election observer in Hooghly, told the State Election Commission on Tuesday that a large number of Opposition candidates have withdrawn their nominations and the trend is continuing.

S N Roychowdhury, Secretary of the SEC, said: “We are unable to get a clear picture for the number of seats where there won’t be any contest. But we expect the number to be less than last polls.”

Sources in the SEC said after the final figure comes, the number of uncontested seats would exceed 4,000. The number was 11,000 last time. The trend is seen in Goghat, Khanakul, Jangipara, Arambag in Hooghly district and in some blocks of West Midnapore. “There were no elections in these areas last time. We think the trend will continue. Because we are getting information of large-scale withdrawals from Hooghly,” said Roychowdhury.

Meanwhile, Opposition TMC alleged that the CPM is forcing its candidates to withdraw nominations at gunpoint.

“The district administration and the police are turning a deaf ear to our pleas for help,” said Partho Chatterjee, Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly.

Roychowdhury said: “The Commission cannot force someone to file or withdraw nominations. Our observers talked to individual candidates who said they were withdrawing papers willingly. We have got complaints. But none of them are so specific that we can ask the police to intervene.”

Till last reports came in, a total of 1,25,118 candidates had filed their nominations for 41,513 gram panchayat seats. For 8,798 panchayat samity seats, 26,917 candidates will contest and for 748 zila parishad seats, 3,703 candidates filed their nominations.

For further protection to candidates in some parts, the SEC claimed to have made arrangements at the SDO office instead of Block offices for filing nominations in Hooghly and West Midnapore. “But this seemed to have no effect as there are so many withdrawals,” said an official of the SEC.

The SEC needs 3,25,000 personnel for the polls. This time, it will not recruit schoolteachers and women.