TMC reminds EC of bypolls, says only 500 Covid-19 cases

A Trinamool Congress delegation visited the Election Commission on Friday and appealed for conducting bypolls in West Bengal, saying daily Covid-19 cases have dipped below 500 now.Party president Subrata Bakshi and state ministers Partha Chatterjee and Subrata Mukherjee were part of the delegation. “The situation in Bengal is conducive to holding the bypolls now. When the eight-phase assembly election was conducted, Covid positivity rate was 33%. Now the figure (of daily cases) has dipped below 500. So, bypolls should be conducted now,” Partha Chatterjee said after meeting the chief electoral officer Aariz Aftab. However, the state health bulletin reported 717 cases on Friday and 812 cases on Thursday.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee also said that byelections in the state have long been pending. The bypolls, especially to the Bhawanipore seat, are of tremendous importance to the Trinamool Congress and the CM herself, who lost the Nandigram assembly seat to her close aide-turned-arch-rival Suvendu Adhikari.Banerjee must get elected to the assembly by November 4 to continue as CM. “A minister who for any period of six consecutive months is not a member of the legislature of the state shall at the expiration of that period cease to be a minister,” says Article 164(4) of the Constitution. Seven assembly seats are vacant in the state. The Dinhata and Santipur assembly seats fell vacant after BJP leaders Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar resigned as MLAs and chose to retain their MP posts. Elections to Samserganj and Jangipur seats in Murshidabad had been countermanded following the death of candidates, who were affected by Covid-19. Bhawanipore was vacated by Sobhondeb Chattopadhyay for Banerjee. Khardaha was vacated following the death of the Trinamool Congress candidate.