West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday, 10 September, filed her nomination for bypolls to the Bhabhanipur seat, reported news agency ANI.
Banerjee lost the Assembly election in Nandigram earlier in 2021 to her former protege and now West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari. She has previously won the Bhabanipur seat twice since 2011 and had moved to Nandigram for the Assembly elections.
Banerjee now needs to win the bypoll from Bhabanipur to continue as the chief minister of Bengal. The BJP has fielded lawyer Priyanka Tibrewal to contest from the seat against Banerjee.
The bypoll will be held on 30 September along with elections to the Samserganj and Jangipur seats, which were unable to go to poll in the Assembly elections.
Mamata Lashes Out at BJP
On 8 September, speaking about the Nandigram election, Banerjee said, "I was defeated in Nandigram, but I have filed a case and if there is nothing in the case, it would not have been admitted by the court."
"A lot of things happened in Nandigram. The VVPATs were not counted. Lots of machines were broken. I had to campaign with an injured leg. There were lots of conspiracies that were hatched against me. The case is sub-judice and so I shall not say much," she said, according to IANS.
"We only know how we fought against all the odds to win the Assembly polls. The BJP brought in goons from other states during the Assembly elections. I have to contest this bypoll as a conspiracy was hatched against me (in Nandigram)," she added.
(With inputs from IANS and ANI)
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