On Tuesday, the Calcutta High Court refused to suspend the September 30 by-election in Bhabanipur, where Trinamool Congress supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee seek a seat in the Assembly. The Election Commission’s claim of a “constitutional emergency” for holding the bypolls for the Bhabanipur assembly seat was denied by a bench led by acting chief judge Rajesh Bindal.
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On the other hand, the court chastised the chief secretary for writing to the polling board to hasten the election. After hearing both sides of the case, the court reserved its decision on September 24. The petitioner had asked the court for help since the EC had decided to hold the poll in that specific seat “due to constitutional emergency and a special request from the State of West Bengal.”
Banerjee needed to win an Assembly seat to save her job as chief minister after losing to her aide-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram in the May election, despite her party sweeping back to power.
Priyanka Tibrewal, a lawyer, runs against Banerjee in Bhabanipur for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The saffron camp’s senior leaders have been campaigning for the election. Banerjee previously served in the Assembly in the Bhabanipur seat in 2011 and 2016.
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TMC’s Sovandeb Chattopadhyay won the constituency in the Assembly election earlier this year, only to quit later to allow the party’s supremo to be elected to the assembly. Banerjee has also gone to court to protest her loss in Nandigram against Adhikari, which forced her to run in a by-election. According to the Constitution, a minister must be elected to the legislature within six months of taking oath as a minister.
