The Calcutta High Court refused to stay the by-polls in Bhabanipur on September 30 from where Trinamool Congress leader and chief minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting.
A bench, headed by chief justice Rajesh Bindal, dismissed a petition questioning the Election Commission’s contention of a “constitutional exigency” for holding the by-elections for Bhabanipur assembly seat in Kolkata. However, the court slammed the chief secretary for writing to the election body to expedite the polls, according to LiveLaw.
The high court had reserved its judgement after hearing both sides on September 24. The petitioner sought the court’s intervention as the EC had gone ahead to hold the polls in the particular constituency “considering the constitutional exigency and special request from the State of West Bengal”.
The polls was necessitated as the Trinamool supremo needed to win an Assembly seat to retain her seat as the chief minister as she had lost to her aide-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram in the May polls even as her party romped back to power.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has plotted lawyer Priyanka Tibrewal from Bhabanipur against Banerjee. And several top leaders from this party have been campaigning for the polls.
Earlier, Mamata Banerjee had represented the Bhabanipur assembly seat in 2011 and 2016 polls. In the Assembly election held earlier this year, TMC’s Sovandeb Chattopadhyay won from the constituency only to resign later to facilitate the Banerjee’s election to the legislature.
