Kolkata: Barely a day after the new ministers at the NDA ministry led by Narendra Modi in the Centre took oath, the Election Commission has announced its decision to hold by-elections to 13 Assembly seats across seven states, of which four are in West Bengal.
The poll body, in a notice issued on Monday said, bypolls to the Assembly seats of Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda and Maniktala will be held on July 10. With the announcement of the poll date, the EC said, Model Code Conduct has come into immediate effect across the four Assembly segments. The last date for filing of nominations has been fixed on June 21, while the last date for withdrawal of candidature has been fixed on June 26. Counting of votes will be on July 13, the Commission has said.
The Raignaj seat in Uttar Dinajpur district fell vacant after Krishna Kalyani resigned as MLA from the seat. Kalyani was elected to the seat on a BJP ticket, but switched sides before the general elections. He was offered a Trinamool Congress ticket from the Raiganj Lok Sabha seat, but was defeated by BJP’s Kartick Chandra Paul.
The Bagda assembly seat in the Matua belt of North 24 Parganas district fell vacant after Biswajit Das resigned from the seat. Like Krishna Kalyani, Biswajit was also elected to the seat on a BJP ticket, but had switched sides to the Trinamool Congress. The TMC offered him a ticket from the Bangaon Lok Sabha seat in the general elections, where he was defeated by BJP’s Shantanu Thakur. Ditto with the Ranaghat Dakshin Assembly seat.
An influential leader from the Matua community, Mukut Mani Adhikari had won the 2021 Assembly elections on a BJP ticket. Mukut had been aspiring for a Lok Sabha ticket from the BJP in the general elections, but when the saffron party decided to stick to their sitting MP, Jagannath Sarkar, from the Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat, Mukut switched sides. The Trinamool Congress promptly gave a ticket to Mukut Mani to contest from the Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat, but was defeated by Jagannath Sarkar in the elections.
The Maniktala Assembly bye-elections have been held up since 2022 following the death of Sadhan Pande, the Trinamool Congress legislator from the seat. Sadhan has been winning from this east Kolkata seat since the 2011 Assembly elections, when Mamata Banerjee ushered in a change at the state’s hustings by ending the 34-year-long Left Front stint in Bengal.
Sadhan had been a cabinet minister in three successive governments of Mamata Banerjee and was the state’s minister for Consumer Affairs, Self Help Group and Self Employment. The bypolls to Maniktala Assembly seat had run into a legal quagmire for a long time, but got resolved earlier this month. Nine assembly seats across West Bengal fell vacant after legislators from those seats contested in the general elections and won.
