Calcutta High Court on Monday asked the BJP’s Nandigram MLA Suvendu Adhikari to file an affidavit by November 29, on his view on chief minister Mamata Banerjee demand to recount votes polled in the Nandigram Assembly election this summer, which he won by1,956 votes (0.85 per cent of vote share).
In her election petition, Mamata claimed Suvendu, with help of some others, had manipulated the counting and forced her defeat. Her election petition also refers to the procedure of challenging the result of a general election before the judiciary after completion of the election process.
Suvendu, a Trinamul turncoat, feared he might not get justice in Calcutta and approached the Supreme Court.
On Monday, Justice Shampa Sarkar of the high court directed the Nandigram MLA to file the affidavit in opposition to Mamata’s petition, after the Supreme Court refused to pass any judgment on his supplementary petition seeking adjournment of the hearing in Calcutta High Court. The apex court has fixed the matter for hearing after two weeks.
Bengal’s advocate-general S.N. Mukherjee cited a Supreme Court ruling and said since the apex court did not issue a stay on the hearing at high court, Suvendu had no right to delay filing his affidavit.
Mamata’s petition claimed that an Election Commission of India official, in charge of counting for Nandigram, had initially declared her victory on May 2, but the result was reversed in Suvendu’s favour the same day. Trinamul’s demand for a recount was turned down by the returning officer.
Having lost the Nandigram election, although she led her party to a sweep across Bengal for the third term, Mamata had to get elected to the Assembly within six months of May 5 when she took oath as chief minister. She won the September 30 Bhowanipore bypoll by a margin of 58,835 votes or 49.61 per cent of the vote share, breaking Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s record of 58,128 votes for a sitting chief minister’s victory margin set by him in Jadavpur in 2006.
The BJP had tried to get Bengal bypolls deferred till at least after November 5.
