Kolkata: Uncertainty looms over when bypolls can be held for the Maniktala Assembly constituency (AC) in North Kolkata which had fallen vacant after the demise of the Trinamool Congress MLA Sadhan Pandey in 2022.
Pandey had remained a three-time MLA from Maniktala AC. First, in the 2011 Assembly polls, then in 2016 and once again in the 2021 Assembly elections in the state.
However, ever since his death in 2022, the seat had remained vacant. It is learnt that a PIL was filed at the Calcutta High Court seeking bypolls to this seat but it was rejected on the grounds that an election petition case challenging the election procedure in that particular seat during the 2021 Assembly polls, is already pending at the High Court.
Sources said unless the pending case is resolved, by-polls to the Maniktala AC will not be possible.
According to the rules, a seat, if falls vacant either because the elected representative has resigned or due to his/her death, needs to go for elections within six months from the date it fell vacant.
However, in the case of Maniktala AC, it has been more than six months since the seat is vacant.
It is learnt that the election petition that is pending at the high court and due to which the bypoll could not be held was filed by BJP’s Maniktala AC candidate Kalyan Chaubey. He had alleged irregularities in the poll process.
He had sought a recount of votes of the Maniktala constituency which he lost to Trinamool’s Sadhan Pande.
A Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court comprising Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmoy Bhattacharya heard the PIL seeking by-polls.
However, the counsel for the Election Commission is learnt to have informed the court that it is the same Representation of People Act that also mentions that elections cannot be held for a particular seat until a pending election petition concerning that seat, is first cleared. Hence, the PIL was rejected and the court stuck to its decision that unless the pending matter is dealt with, the by-polls to the seat cannot be held.