KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee moved the Calcutta High Court challenging the poll verdict of the Nandigram seat where she lost by more than 1,900 votes to her former trusted lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari.
The case will be heard in Kolkata High Court at 11 am on Friday. Mamata’s defeat in Nandigram triggered a controversy as after the counting of total votes, the returning officer first declared her as the winner by more than 1,200 votes. But after counting of postal ballots, the officer later declared that she lost the battle by 1,956 votes.
The Election Commission then released the final results later in the night which declared Adhikari as the winner. On the day of the election results, Mamata had made it clear that she would move court challenging the Nandigram poll verdict.
Nandigram was one of the mostly keenly watched poll battles in Bengal. Mamata had accepted the BJP’s challenge to contest only from Nandigram, a stronghold of the Adhikari family, and in the process, she had left her pocket borough Bhowanipore to Kolkata ex-mayor Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.