West Bengal panchayat polls highlights: Violence rocked Bengal’s rural polls as voting ended on Saturday leaving 12 people dead, ballot boxes vandalized and bombs thrown at rivals in a number of villages. The 12 deceased include eight from the ruling TMC and one worker each of the BJP, CPI(M) and Congress who died since midnight in the crucial three-tier panchayat polls, according to officials. Polling began at 7 AM in 73,887 seats with 5.67 crore people deciding the fate of around 2.06 lakh candidates. Till 5 pm, 66.28 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
There are 63,229 gram panchayat seats and 9,730 panchayat samiti seats in 22 districts, while 928 zilla parishad seats in 20 districts as Darjeeling and Kalimpong have a two-tier system with Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) and Siliguri Sub-divisional Council at the top.