West Bengal panchayat polls: Results to be announced today

Kolkata (West Bengal): The results for the West Bengal panchayat polls will be announced today.The state witnessed violence in a number of places during the panchayat polls, which was held on May 14, due to which re-polling was held on Wednesday in 568 panchayat election booths spread across 19 districts of the state.

The booths, where re-polling took place, include 63 in Murshidabad, 52 in Coochbehar, 28 in West Midnapore and 10 in Hooghly among others.The panchayat elections in West Bengal saw huge-scale clashes on Monday between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers, resulting in the death of at least 12 people.
While addressing a meeting at BJP headquarters in New Delhi, Prime Minister Modi tagged the violence as "murder of democracy".

"There is one more thing I want to talk about...the scenes from the Panchayat Elections in West Bengal. It was nothing but a murder of democracy. From the nomination stage to the day of polling, where was the spirit of democracy? People were bullied," Modi said.

The State Election Commission had ordered the re-poll, following complaints of violence during the polls on Monday. The poll panel later urged the state government and the police to make elaborate security arrangements so that polling can be held in a free and fair manner.

The Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and other parties of the Left Front also staged a protest outside State Election Commission in Kolkata against the incidents of violence.

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Taking note of the incident, the Ministry of Home Affairs also sought a report from the state government regarding incidents of violence during Panchayat Election in the state.
The voting took place for 621 zilla parishads, over six thousand panchayat samitis, and nearly 31 thousand gram panchayats.