KOLKATA: The main opposition, BJP, has reportedly failed to put up candidates in one-third of the seats from Nandigram, the assembly constituency in East Midnapore from where Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari won the last Assembly election by defeating CM Mamata Banerjee.
The party has failed to field their candidates because of the ruling Trinamool’s alleged highhandedness in Nandigram, which had drawn nationwide attention after Mamata decided to change her Kolkata constituency and contest against her former lieutenant Adhikari.
According to the data available with the state election commission, there is no BJP candidate in 66-gram panchayat seats and seven panchayat samiti seats in Nandigram. In Nandigram panchayat’s 19 seats, the BJP is missing eight. In Kendamari-Jalpai panchayat in Nandigram-I panchayat samiti has a total of 22 seats and the BJP failed to field a single candidate there.
The panchayat has three seats for the panchayat samiti, the middle-tier of the rural polls, and the election will be held without any face representing the saffron camp. The BJP has, however, managed to field 10 candidates in Kalicharanpur panchayat out of its 17 seats and in Daudpur panchayat, lotus has bloomed on the walls of seven seats as the saffron camp has no candidate in the rest 10 seats.
The party is trying to ensure none of its candidates will be forced to withdraw nominations by the TMC on Tuesday, the deadline for withdrawing candidature. “The TMC is trying to force at least 20,000 of our candidates out of 56,000 to withdraw their nominations to maximise their uncontested wins. We will fight against their atrocities with our full capacity,” said BJP’s state president Sukanta Majumdar.
With violence continuing unabated ahead of the nomination process, opposition parties are accusing the TMC of flexing muscles to force candidates of its rival parties to withdraw their nominations on Tuesday.
The TMC, however, refuted the allegations. “The BJP failed to field candidates in one-third of the seats in Nandigram and is trying to malign the TMC,” said a TMC leader in Nandigram.
The large-scale violence during nomination filing resulted from Governor C V Ananda Bose’s visit to Bhangar in South 24-Parganas where two persons were shot dead on the last day of submitting nominations on June 15.