With fear and protests poll officers begins counting of votes

After the Karnataka elections and voting is over, another state is currently counting their votes.

Today, the West Bengal Panchayat polls will be announced. The counting began at 08:00 AM.

The state witnessed violence in a number of places during the panchayat polls, which was held on May 14, due to which re-polling was held on Wednesday in 568 panchayat election booths spread across 19 districts of the state.

The booths, where re-polling took place, include 63 in Murshidabad, 52 in Coochbehar, 28 in West Midnapore and 10 in Hooghly among others.

The panchayat elections in West Bengal saw huge-scale clashes on Monday between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers, resulting in the death of at least 12 people.

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A section of poll officers in North Dinajpur district threatened to boycott poll duty unless they are provided proper security. They protested in Raiganj and blocked National Highway 34 for hours over this demand. This demand arose after a presiding officer was found dead on rail tracks at Raiganj. Police suspect suicide but fellow poll officers don’t agree. 

The State Election Commission has ordered that no victory rallies will be allowed by political parties till all results are announced. Counting will be held across the state at multiple centres. Prohibitory orders are imposed in a 200-metre radius around each centre.

While addressing a meeting at BJP headquarters in New Delhi, Prime Minister Modi tagged the violence as “murder of democracy”.

“There is one more thing I want to talk about…the scenes from the Panchayat Elections in West Bengal. It was nothing but a murder of democracy. From the nomination stage to the day of polling, where was the spirit of democracy? People were bullied,” Modi said.

The State Election Commission had ordered the re-poll, following complaints of violence during the polls on Monday. The poll panel later urged the state government and the police to make elaborate security arrangements so that polling can be held in a free and fair manner.

READ ALSO:  At least 15 people were killed and 50 injured in West Bengal

The Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and other parties of the Left Front also staged a protest outside State Election Commission in Kolkata against the incidents of violence.

Taking note of the incident, the Ministry of Home Affairs also sought a report from the state government regarding incidents of violence during Panchayat Election in the state.

The voting took place for 621 zilla parishads, over six thousand panchayat samitis, and nearly 31 thousand gram panchayats.

Around five crore people cast their vote to choose from over 1.15 lakh candidates for representatives to 38,529 seats. The actual number of panchayat seats is 58,692. But a record 34% seats were won unopposed by the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Trinamool fielded 38,443 and the opposition the rest. There are a large number of independents as well, many of them rebel Trinamool candidates.

This panchayat poll is the last major poll in Bengal before 2019 and results will show which way the wind may blow. The Trinamool is the superpower in the state but the BJP’s poll percentage has been steadily rising – from about 3% in the 2013 rural polls to above 20% in recent by-polls.