Less candidates than in 2018 withdrew from consideration for panchayat elections

Following the filing of various petitions by opposition parties alleging that workers of the Trinamool Congress, the ruling party, threatened and coerced hundreds of candidates into withdrawing, the division bench of Chief Justice T. S. Sivagnanam requested the SEC to submit a report.The state electoral commission (SEC) notified the Calcutta high court on Thursday that only 9.03% of candidates for the July 8 three-tier panchayat elections in West Bengal withdrew their nominations by the June 20 deadline, adding that the similar ratio was at 17.66% in the last elections held in 2018.

Following the filing of various petitions by opposition parties alleging that employees of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the ruling party, bullied and coerced hundreds of candidates into withdrawing, the division bench of Chief Justice T. S. Sivagnanam requested the SEC to submit a report.In response to the information provided to the court by SEC, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] claimed that comparing data from five years ago with current data cannot justify the ongoing violence, which has so far resulted in 11 fatalities and dozens of injuries since June 9, when nomination filing began.