Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) swept the civic election in West Bengal by winning 73 of the 92 municipal corporations all across the state including Kolkata.

It retained the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for the third time in a row by winning 114 of the 144 wards. The Left Front won 15 seats with BJP claiming seven and Congress party five.

“This is the victory of the people. In spite of such malicious campaign by the opposition and a section of the media, the party has won comfortably as it always stayed with the people,” said a visibly satisfied West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee following her return from earthquake-ravaged north Bengal.

The victory comes as another shot in the arm for Banerjee ahead of the crucial state assembly elections next year. She and her party had been under attack from political rivals, particularly over the Saradha chit fund scam, in which several prominent leaders of her party have been questioned.

With Kolkata mayoral candidate Shovan Chattopadhyay winning by a comfortable margin of 5,500 votes, Banerjee took on the BJP, whose vote share has further diminished in comparison to last year’s parliamentary election.

“People have shown that just by spending money one cannot win elections. There has to be credibility. Also in the last one year of being in power, Modi government has proved to be anti-farmer and only pro-industrialist,” Banerjee said.

There were a few hiccups for the party, with Deputy Mayor of Kolkata Farzana Alam and chairman of outgoing board Sachitananda Banerjee losing to the Left Front and BJP respectively.

For the Left Front, though, there was much-needed consolation as it retained the Siliguri municipality, the number two urban settlement in the state, under the leadership of Ashok Bhattacharyya. The Congress party hold on to its base in Murshidabad, but the BJP could not win a single municipality in the state.

Opposition parties though claimed that this victory was due to the party’s muscle power where it subverted democracy to ensure a victory. ““This was expected. We have already said that the elections have been a farce. There was violence all through the campaign and during voting days. Most of the genuine voters were not allowed to vote. TMC along with the state election commissioner and police, rigged the polls and terrorised Bengal. The assembly polls under the election commission of India and with central forces will be different, I promise you,” said claimed BJP state chief Rahul Sinha.

Meanwhile, the Left Front and the BJP has called for a 12-hour shutdown on April 30 protesting against the violence during the civic polls.

Banerjee though came out strongly against the strike call and asked the opposition to withdraw the same at the earliest promising that her administration will do everything to maintain normality in the state. “What is the need to call a strike? It was a contest. You win some, lose some. They are not interested in the progress of the state and want to kill work culture for political gains. My administration will do everything so that the state functions normally,” Banerjee said.