BJP confident of winning Kolkata, Howrah civic polls
The ruling BJP is confident of winning more than 150 out of newly delineated 209 wards in the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections.
Union Minister and former State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar has said that the saffron outfit was raring to go and was confident of winning more than three-fourths of the seats. “We are ready and raring to go... We are confident of winning 150 to 175 seats... We have asked our workers to get prepared for the elections and reach out to the people,” he said.
While Majumdar has been made the BJP’s charge de affairs of KMC elections and Rajya Sabha MP, another former State party president Rahul Sinha has been given the charge of Howrah Municipal elections.
“We do not doubt that we will win but... That is not the question... The question is how by how many seats we will win... It will be a huge victory coming BJP’s way,” Sinha said, adding, “TMC has been thrown out of power as a most corrupt political party... While the Left has been rejected and is unlikely to leave any imprint... In that case it is the BJP all the way.” The West Bengal State Election Commission is planning to conclude the election process by the first week of December, sources in the SEC said following a meeting of senior officials.
West Bengal Government had decided to hold civic elections to municipal boards including Kolkata, Howrah and Bally.
Most of the civic boards had been rendered non-functional after the TMC-elected representatives resigned their posts soon after this year’s Assembly elections, which saw the BJP coming to power with 209 seats. The TMC got only 80 seats, and later they were further reduced to a nonentity following rebellion within the party, with about 62 MLAs forming a separate group out of the one led by the former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Meanwhile, the breakaway faction of the TMC MPs who had joined the NCPI after the State elections said that they would like to contest the civic elections as constituents of the NDA, while the BJP leadership said that they would contest the elections alone.
“We are members of the NDA and naturally would like to contest elections as constituents of the group,” said senior leader Sudip Bandopadhyay.
