Team News Riveting
Kolkata, April 26
The high voltage election campaign in West Bengal finally came to an end on Monday evening with both BJP and Trinamool Congress (TMC) claiming a comfortable victory.
Ruling TMC headed by Mamata Banerjee had been facing a tough challenge from the BJP to retain power for the third successive term. Soon after the election process that started on March 27, the campaign showed a bitter show with Mamata leaving no opportunity to hit the BJP leaders below the belt specially the Prime Minister.
Mamata conducted the entire election campaign on wheel-chair as she sustained “serious” injury on her leg at the onset. She initially blamed the BJP workers but later kept a silence when proved the injury was accidental. Interestingly, she wound could not heal even after a month as she addressed the last meeting from the wheel-chair only.
The campaign for the eighth and final phase of election concluded on Monday at 6.30 pm. The state would go to the last round of election on April 29. The counting of votes would take place on May 2 while both the Trinamool Congress and BJP claiming they would have a thumping win and cross 200 seats come May 2, an assertion that was as polarised as the campaign run by both the sides.
The state has 294 Assembly seats and the last day of campaign saw both the party chiefs JP Nadda and Mamata Banerjee fire their last salvos at each other. The chief minister claimed that her party would win over 200 seats, while the BJP would not cross the 70-seat mark.
On the other hand, BJP President J P Nadda said his party had already crossed the majority mark (148) by the sixth phase of the polling and it would only add more numbers by the time all eight phases have polled. He said people had reposed their faith strongly in the saffron camp.
