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Updated: Jul 16, 2019 23:11 IST

Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Tuesday claimed to retain control of Bengal’s Bongaon municipality amid allegations by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that their councillors were not allowed to vote in a no-confidence motion against the civic body’s chairman.

“The councillors expressed their confidence in the current board. We have won. The vote was supposed to take place at 3 pm. We waited for the till 3:25 pm, but BJP councillors did not reach and we held the voting. All 10 councillors voted for us,” said chairman of the civic board Shankar Addhya.

But within a few minutes of Addhya claiming victory, BJP councillors entered the municipality building around 3:45 pm, signed the letter of no-confidence, claiming that they won since no TMC councillor was present at that time.

“Eleven of us signed in favour of the no-confidence in presence of the executive officer. None from TMC was present at that time. So we won,” said Biswajit Das, the legislator of Bongaon North constituency, who switched from TMC to the BJP in June along with Das, 12 councillors had joined the BJP.

The executive officer of the Bongaon civic board said, “One board meeting took place. Voting on the confidence motion took place. One resolution took place. If someone submits another resolution, I have nothing to do. I shall send my report to the district authorities.”

Debdas Mondal, BJP leader in the North 24 Parganas district, said that they will move court against what happened on Tuesday.

Also read: TMC regains civic body as 9 councillors return to fold

The no-confidence motion in the civic body turned into a prestige fight between the TMC and the BJP against the backdrop of the ruling party regaining control of Halisahar and Kanchrapara civic bodies last week. Bhatpara became the third name in the list on Tuesday.

Since the Lok Sabha poll results were announced, a majority of the councilors of seven municipalities – Bhatpara, Halisahar, Kanchrapara, Naihati, Garulia, Bongaon and Darjeeling – joined the BJP.

“Tuesday turned out to be a black day for democracy in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee’s party murdered democracy today,” said BJP state unit vice president Jay Prakash Majumdar.

But the TMC insisted that the BJP councillors did not show up on time for the vote.

“The three councillors who brought the no-confidence motion had to arrive at the venue by 3 pm, but they did not,” said Jyoti Priya Mallick, minister and TMC North 24 Parganas district president.

Before the scheduled time of the meeting at 3 pm, BJP leaders alleged nine of their 11

councillors were allowed to enter the ground floor of the civic body building but were locked up there. Two councillors were not allowed to enter the building at all.

Outside the civic body building about 77 km away from Kolkata, BJP supporters scuffled with the police and Rapid Action Force in protest against the cops stopping councillors Himadri Mondal and Kartik Mondal from entering the building. Police used a stun grenade and launched a mild baton charge.

“We (Himadri and Kartik Mondal) were framed in false cases. However, today we got interim bail from Calcutta high court for seven days. Yet the police did not allow us to enter the municipality building to participate in the vote,” said Himadri Mondal, one of the BJP councillors.

Civic body chairman Shankar Addhya washed his hands of the fracas saying, “I cannot comment on what happened outside (the police not allowing Himadri and Kartik to enter). It is the administration’s jurisdiction.”

Bongaon municipality has 22 councillors of whom 20 belonged to the ruling party, while the Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) has one each.

After the Lok Sabha election results, 12 councillors switched to the BJP, reducing the ruling party to a minority. Later one councillor returned to the TMC fold.

Apprehending trouble, the administration clamped prohibitory orders within a radius of half a kilometer of the Bongaon municipality building on Tuesday.

The Lok Sabha election results were a watershed in Bengal politics. The BJP won 18 of Bengal’s 42 seats in a 900% jump from its tally of two seats in 2014. The TMC won 22 compared to its 2014 tally of 34.

The BJP’s vote share rose from 17.02% in 2014 to 40.25% this year, while the TMC’s share crept up from 39.79% to 43.28% in the same period.