New Delhi: By-poll to the Bhabanipur Assembly seat in West Bengal, from where Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee plans to contest, would be held September 30, the Election Commission (EC) announced Saturday. Mamata Banerjee will have to contest and win as she had lost to protégé-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari in the West Bengal Assembly elections conducted in March-April this year.
Polling for three ‘deferred adjourned’ elections – in two Assembly seats of West Bengal and one of Odisha – will also be held September 30. The constituencies in West Bengal where by-polls would be conducted are Samserganj and Jangirpur.
Counting on all four seats will take place October 3. The EC said it has kept ‘much stricter’ norms as an abundant caution to safeguard from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Bhabanipur by-poll will allow Mamata a chance to become a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.
Mamata Banerjee had moved out of her traditional seat in Bhabanipur to fight in Nandigram during the Assembly polls. However, she lost by a margin of less than 2,000 votes to Adhikari who contested on a BJP ticket. Adhikari is now the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.
After the election results, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, the TMC MLA from Bhabanipur constituency vacated the seat. He did so to allow Banerjee to contest from there. Banerjee had won from Bhabanipur twice since 2011.
According to an Election Commission press note, the West Bengal chief secretary has informed that in view of administrative exigencies and public interest and to avoid a vacuum in the state, by-election for Bhabanipur, from where CM Mamata Banerjee intends to contest elections, may be conducted. She has to become a member of the state legislature by November 5.
Referring to its decision to hold assembly polls in Samserganj and Jangipur of West Bengal where elections were earlier deferred, EC said since candidates and political parties for these three seats have already ‘availed’ the campaign period from April 29 to May 3 this year, campaigning will only be allowed from September 20 in these seats.
Based on inputs received from states where bypolls are due, the EC said it has decided not to hold by-elections in other 31 Assembly constituencies and three Parliamentary constituencies in view of the Covid-19 situation, floods and festival season.