Trinamool Remains Absent From All-Party Meeting On Nandigram Bypolls

(MENAFN- IANS) Kolkata, Sep 8 (IANS) As Nandigram Assembly Constituency in East Midnapore district of West Bengal is heading for bypolls on October 6, the Trinamool Congress failed to send any representative to an all-party meeting on the forthcoming bye-elections convened on Tuesday by the East Midnapore District Magistrate, Niranjan Kumar.

With the dates for the bypolls at Nandigram Assembly Constituency being announced on Monday, Kumar convened a district-level all-party meeting to discuss how the polls could be conducted peacefully.

However, despite all major political parties in the state having sent their representatives at the all-party meeting, there was no representation from Trinamool Congress, which had ruled West Bengal for 15 years from 2011 to 2026.

Naturally, speculations have surfaced in political circles in the state on whether Trinamool Congress will at all be in a position to field any candidate for Nandigram bypolls.

“As it is, in terms of legislative presence from East Midnapore in the West Bengal Assembly, Trinamool Congress' tally is zero, with the BJP securing all the 16 seats from that district in the Assembly polls earlier this year. Second, the Trinamool Congress, after the elections, is now trifurcated into three factions. In such a situation, the Trinamool's inability to send any representative to the all-party meeting automatically prompts the question whether the previous ruling party in the state will at all be able to field any candidate for Nandigram bypolls,” said a city-based political observer.

In the Assembly polls earlier this year, current Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari got elected both from Nandigram as well as from Bhabanipur Assembly Constituency in South Kolkata.

At Bhabanipur, Adhikari got elected by defeating his predecessor and former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by a margin of more than 15,000 votes.

Thereafter, CM Adhikari retained the Bhabanipur constituency, thus necessitating bypolls for Nandigram.

Since 2021, Nandigram, because of Suvendu Adhikari, had been a virtual fortress for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Therefore, political observers are not in two minds about the results of the bye-elections there.

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