In another setback for the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress, its candidate for the Rejinagar Assembly bypoll, Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, has withdrawn his candidature, on Saturday.
The development comes on the same day that Sanchita Dey Pradhan, the faction’s candidate for the Nandigram Assembly bypoll, withdrew her nomination after meeting West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Friday. Earlier on Friday, the Election Commission of India allotted new names and symbols to the two rival factions of the party, one led by Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, and the other by expelled party legislator Ritabrata Banerjee. She said Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, had called her on Thursday night before she took the decision.
‘We will not contest in Nandigram. We will support our sister party, Congress. The arrest triggered a political reaction from the Congress, with West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Subhankar Sarkar alleging that the BJP wanted to eliminate opposition from the electoral contest. ‘In this way, the BJP is trying to create a one-party rule in West Bengal. Will there be no opposition politics in this state as well as in the country?
This will strengthen the INDIA bloc’, Banerjee said at a press conference at her residence in Kalighat, South Kolkata. Banerjee said a decision on the Rejinagar Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, which is also scheduled to go to a bypoll, would be taken later. Sarkar said. The BJP’s East Midnapore district unit rejected the allegation and said the party had no connection with Pradhan’s arrest.
