KOLKATA: Voting in five RS seats ended late this evening amidst high drama and `TMC –engineered’ splitting both Left and Congress votes and got their fourth RS seats with Congress-backed independent candidate S Maliabadi ran two vote (37) short of a victory.
While Trinamool Congress won four seats, CPI(M) candidate Ritabrata won with 59 votes.
And despite Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee ruling out “any ideological sale out either for money or any allurement,’’ both Congress and CPI(M) leaders accused TMC of `purchasing two Congress and three Left Front votes’ for ensuring their victory for fourth candidate which the party did not have strength in terms of numbers.
In response Pradesh Congress suspended two rebels and Revolutionary Socialist Party two though Forward Bloc did not yet react immediately to the rebel who is reported to have also voted for TMC’s fourth candidate.
“There had never been any horse-trading or money laundering to purchase votes in Bengal,’’ said CPI(M) and Left legislative leader in the Assembly Dr Surya Kanth Mishra. “It is Trinamool which introduced such trends used else where in India,’’ he added remaining unconvinced despite Mamata Banerjee denying all charges saying: “It is West Bengal which will have nothing of it, Bengal is politically a matured state.’’
“But something dirty happened where both money and allurements worked in favour of TMC, so there’s an ideological sale out,’’ reiterated Dr Mishra.
Now TMC with 187 votes with two independents and three from Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had enough strength to push through three, but had less than to have fourth candidate elected. “So there was an engineered split in voting and it was shocking for the CPI(M) if not for Congress just before LS polls,’’ observed a political observers.

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