Election Commission blows bypoll bugle in Bengal

Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has set the ball rolling for conducting by-elections in seven Assembly seats in Bengal.

State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Aariz Aftab has written to the District Election Officers (DEOs) of those districts where bypolls are due, to begin the first level of checking of EVMs and VVPATs. The development comes soon after a six-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress met with the Full Bench of the ECI on July 15 and sought early bypolls. They said even an election with short notice of seven days will be enough for their party.

The CEO in his letter has mentioned that standard Covid protocol on sanitisation, social distancing and wearing of masks should be strictly maintained during the checking process. The CEO has forwarded his letter to the DEOs of Cooch Behar, Kolkata South, South 24-Parganas, North 24-Parganas and Nadia.

The seats where polls are due are Jangipur and Samsherganj in Murshidabad, Khardah in North 24-Parganas, Bhowanipore in Kolkata, South Dinhata in Cooch Behar, Santipur in Nadia and Goshaba in South 24-Parganas.

"There is no need to check the EVMs and VVPATs in Murshidabad as elections were not held in Jangipur and Samsherganj as a candidate in each of the seats passed away before polls were held," an EC official said.

In Khardah, TMC candidate Kajal Sinha died of Covid before the announcement of election results while in Goshaba, winning TMC candidate Jayanta Naskar succumbed to post Covid complications on June 20.

The Santipur and Dinhata seats fell vacant as two BJP MPs, Jagannath Sarkar and Nisith Pramanik, resigned after winning Assembly elections as they wanted to continue as members of the Lok Sabha.

In Bhowanipore, state Agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, resigned to pave way for TMC chief Mamata Banerjee to contest the elections. Banerjee had lost the elections from the Nandigram seat. Chattopadhyay is all set to contest the bypolls from Khardah.

"We are happy with the development. There should be an elected representative from all Assembly seats," TMC leader Firhad Hakim said.