TMC team meets state poll officer, seeks early bypolls

Kolkata: A four-member Trinamool Congress delegation met Chief Electoral Officer Aariz Aftab and urged him to take steps to conduct the by-election in seven Assembly constituencies at the earliest.

The delegation included Partha Chatterjee, secretary general of Trinamool Congress, Subrata Mukherjee, Shashi Panja and Javed Khan.

Without naming the BJP, Chatterjee said: "Those who are talking about restoration of democracy in Bengal are trying their best to delay the procedure of holding the by-election."

Chatterjee said the bypolls could be held following the Covid protocols as the number of people inflicted with the infection was varying anything between 1 and 1.5%. "The situation in Bengal is much better and the by-election can easily be held."

He regretted that despite repeated requests from Trinamool Congress, including its chairperson Mamata Banerjee, to club the last three phases of Assembly election into one as the number of people inflicted with Covid was going up fast and had reached around 33%.

"Under such a situation, the Election Commission of India did not consider the request of Trinamool Congress and went ahead with its eight-phase election schedule," he said. By-election in seven Assembly constituencies are due as their nominees have either died, did not take oath or resigned.

State Agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay had resigned from Bhowanipore Assembly seat from where Mamata Banerjee is likely to contest. Two BJP MLAs, Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar did not take oath as MLAs and these two seats fell vacant. Pramanik has become the Union minister of state for Home Affairs. Bypolls in two seats in Murshidabad will be held as both the nominees died before the election was held in the district.

In Khardah, Kajal Sinha, Trinamool Congress candidate, died before the results of the Assembly election were announced. Sinha was declared elected.