After doing well in the lok Sabha elections, the Bengal BJP is preparing for the bigger kill in the next year’s civic elections, particularly the all-important Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls, State party president Rahul Sinha has said.
In what could bring the party to direct confrontation with the ruling Trinamool Congress, the saffron outfit is making some serious planning for the 2015 civic polls in Kolkata, where it has beaten the Trinamool in 23 wards and ended up in the second position in as many as 70 others.
The election results have shown that party has won from 24 Assembly segments including the Bhawanipore seat, currently held by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Among other seats in Kolkata are the Bidhan Nagar and Jorasanko seats. The party has also won from places like Kalchini, Naxalbari-Matigara, Siliguri, Islampur, English Bazaar, Basirhat (South), Bhatpara, Kharagpur (Sadar), Asansol, Kulti, Baraboni etc.
Apart from the Chief Minister's seat, her party has trailed in the constituencies of at least seven Ministers including some very powerful ones.In the Chief Minister's seat “where even a cow can win in the Trinamool's name”, the ruling party has trailed by about 200 votes and “the margin is likely to increase in the days to come,” said a BJP leader adding the seat that once belonged to Syama Prasad Mookerjee would soon be restored to his followers.
The BJP seems to have swept the polls in English Bazaar municipality also. Here the party has won in 23 wards leaving one each for the left and the Trinamool Congress.Vote percentage wise, the party has upped its share from 4.06 per cent in 2009 to a whopping 17 per cent this year round eating largely into the left vote base, experts say. The Trinamool which had got 39.08 per cent in 2009 has shed some support getting 39.02 per cent votes.
This, however, does not factor in the massive violence and booth-capturing throughout the State.The left's vote share has come down from 41.05 per cent to below 30 per cent for the first time after Independence. Its current vote share is 29.06 per cent. The Congress has been able to increase its vote share from 8.91 per cent to 9.7 per cent.
Going by the lok Sabha election results the BJP and the left are almost going neck-and-neck with the Marxists winning from only 29 as against the saffron party's 24 Assembly seats. The left had won from 62 seats in 2011 and about 105 seats in 2009.On his party's first priority of capturing the KMC in the next year's civic elections, Rahul Sinha said the BJP had decided to divide Kolkata into four parts and put each of them under one leader to ensure better results in the municipal elections.
“Mamata Banerjee wanted to throw Modiji in jail by putting a rope around his waist. Now she should be more concerned about the CBI rope that she is facing in the Saradha and other cases,” a combative Sinha said, indicating that his party was preferring a direct confrontation with the Trinamool in the days to come.
“A strong possibility of CBI action is the reason why the Trinamool is not celebrating its victory this time,” he maintained.On what Banerjee should do about her party's loss from her own Assembly seat, Sinha said “both Nitish Kumar and Tarun Gogoi have resigned owning moral responsibility, now it is up to Mamata Banerjee to think what she would do.”Meanwhile, the TMC leadership is known to have asked its winning MPs to take interest in the development of their constituencies, right from the beginning.