Trinamul suffered a blow on Friday with a Calcutta High Court division bench upholding the Election Commission’s decision to cancel the candidature of Ujjwal Kumar, the party’s nominee from Purulia’s Joypur Assembly seat, on technical grounds.

The returning officer of the Election Commission had on Wednesday rejected Kumar’s nomination because of incomplete information in his papers. Kumar had challenged the decision and moved high court on Thursday. Then, a single bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya quashed the EC’s decision and directed the returning officer to accept Kumar’s nomination.

The EC thereupon challenged the order before a division bench headed by Chief Justice T.B.N. Radhakrishnan. The high court’s division bench set aside the order passed by the single bench and upheld EC’s rejection of Kumar’s candidature. It observed that with the start of the poll process, the court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the EC’s decision.

General secretary of Trinamul Purulia district unit, Nadendu Mahali, said Friday’s HC decision was a setback and added that they were mulling to support Independent candidate Dibyajyoti Singh Deo.

“He is a youth leader of the party and had filed nomination as he was denied a ticket.”

Acquittal-arrest case

In another order, a division bench of Calcutta High Court, headed by Chief Justice T.B.N Radhakrishnan, on Friday refused to pass any order on a plea moved by former BJP leader of East Midnapore Anisur Rahman, who had challenged the legality of the high court order on March 2 that overturned a Tamluk court verdict acquitting him in a 2019 murder case.

Following the order on Friday, Anisur will remain in jail for now.

Anisur was re-arrested within hours of his release on March 2 when the single bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya set aside the Tamluk court order.

Anisur, who before joining the BJP in 2018 had been with Trinamul as well, had been arrested in October 2019 on charges of murdering Trinamul Congress leader Kurban Shah. After Suvendu Adhikari left Trinamul to join the BJP, the state government decided to withdraw murder charges against Anisur. Trinamul had planned to use Anisur’s popularity in the party’s fight against Adhikari in the Nandigram election. Anisur had recently announced his decision to quit the BJP and ally with the Trinamul again.

A magistrate in Tamluk earlier this month allowed the state government to withdraw the case against Anisur, but a resident of East Midnapore challenged the Tamluk court’s order in high court. Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya struck down the Tamluk magistrate’s order, leading to the re-arrest of Anisur.