Bypolls in 4 remaining Assembly seats on Oct 30
Kolkata: The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday announced the date of by-election in the four remaining Assembly constituencies in Bengal — Dinhata, Santipur, Khardaha and Gosaba. The by-elections are going to be held soon after Durga Puja on October 30 and the counting is slated for November 2.
The announcement of the bypolls in the four Assembly segments comes when only two days are left for the by-election at Bhabanipur, Samserganj and Jangipur.
The bypolls at South 24-Parganas' Gosaba will be held due to the death of TMC's MLA Jayanta Naskar. He died on June 20. Naskar had won by a margin of 23,709 votes from Gosaba Assembly segment situated in the coastal part of South 24-Parganas.
The bypoll at Khardah in North 24-Parganas is going to take place as the Assembly segment had witnessed the tragic death of Trinamool Congress nominee Kajal Sinha on April 25, just three days after the polls in the Assembly segment on April 22. He died due to Covid and was declared as a winning candidate on May 2. He had won by around 28,140 votes.
Cooch Behar's Dinhata and Nadia's Santipur Assembly constituencies are going for bypolls as BJP MPs Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar respectively had refused to continue as MLA despite winning the elections. Trinamool Congress nominee Udayan Guha had been defeated by only 46 votes by Pramanik at Dinhata.
The bypolls in the four Assembly segments in Bengal are going to be held along with 26 Assembly constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan and Telangana.
The last date of nomination is October 8 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is October 16. The entire process of the bypoll would be completed by November 11.
The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has come into force in Nadia, Cooch Behar, North and South 24-Parganas with the announcement of the bypolls.
Welcoming the move of the Election Commission, Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy stated that it was necessary and it is good that all the bypolls in the state will be complete by the first week of November. "We expect that the bypoll will pass off peacefully," he said.
The BJP, however, criticised the Election Commission for holding the elections amidst the festive season. BJP leader Rahul Sinha said: "We will follow the decisions of the Election Commission or else it would be said that we are stepping back apprehending a poor result in the election. But we condemn the bypolls amidst the festive season. Lakshmi Puja is on October 20 and the bypolls are on October 30. People and traders would be highly inconvenienced due to the election campaign."
