TMC sweeps Siliguri civic polls, Deb announced as Mayor

PRASHANT ACHARYA

SILIGURI, : Trinamool Congress swept the Siliguri Municipal Corporation elections on Monday to take control of the civic body for the first time. Following the massive victory, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced party leader Gautam Deb as the Mayor for Siliguri.
In the results declared, the TMC bagged 37 seats out of the 47 seats in Siliguri Municipal Corporation. The BJP came a distant second with five seats while CPIM won four seats. The Congress could win from only one ward.
It was a big setback for BJP and CPIM as they did not expect such electoral reverse and were hoping to win more seats.
Among the heavyweight leaders that suffered defeat was CPIM veteran and former mayor Ashok Bhattacharya. He lost the election for the first time after remaining undefeated for past 20 years.
Bhattacharya lost from ward number 6 to Trinamool Congress candidate Md Alam Khan. Out of total 4402 votes, Bhattacharya received 1447 votes while his rival Khan got 1929 votes.
BJP MLA Shankar Ghosh contesting from ward number 24 also suffered a defeat. He lost to TMC candidate Pratul Chakraborty by 483 votes.
BJP leader and former deputy mayor Nantu Pal lost to TMC candidate Basudeb Ghosh from ward number 12 by 265 votes.
TMC leader Uma Goyal lost from ward number 11 to his rival Manjushree Paul of BJP.
Gautam Deb was announced as the next Mayor of Siliguri following the TMC’s victory. He won from ward number 33.
An unexpected win came from TMC candidate Abhaya Basu, a high school headmistress, who won with the largest margin. She defeated her rival candidate by 1247 votes.
Shobha Subba, contesting from TMC, won from ward number 42.