On August 26, a delegation of the Trinamool Congress led by the MP Sougata Roy, had submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission in Delhi and demanded immediate holding of by-election in the seven assembly seats in West Bengal. Four of them were vacated due to deaths of candidates owing to COVID-19. While two of them died after the election, the other two died before the poll. Three of the remaining seats were vacated by the existing MLAs. Two are from BJP and one from TMC.
The TMC member who resigned is Agriculture Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, who had won the Bhowanipore seat defeating BJP candidate - a TMC defector - Rudranil Ghosh.
Now, Mamata Banerjee is likely to be the candidate in Bhowanipore as she is not an MLA. The CM lost in Nandigram to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari, another TMC defector. She has to get elected by November 4. Chattopadhyay, who too is no longer an MLA, did not resign, meaning he would also be a candidate from one of the vacant seats. Another non-MLA, Finance Minister Amit Mitra, is all set to resign as he has expressed his wish not to stand in the election anymore. In fact, Mitra, a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient, had expressed his desire to relinquish his position long ago. He did not even attend the assembly session to present the budget, despite being the finance minister. Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee had deputised him.
The TMC delegation, through a graphical illustration, had explained to the ECI how the number of COVID-19 cases in all seven assembly constituencies had gone down recently. And that it's the right time to hold the by-elections.
The ECI is yet to make any statement. The commission recently wrote to all political parties for their opinion on holding elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. The TMC had replied in affirmative about holding the election, taking all kinds of precautions. Interestingly, the party had opposed the long eight-phase assembly election, amid the second wave.
The BJP, expectedly, has attacked the CM and the TMC over it. The saffron party’s state unit president Dilip Ghosh said that when elections to 102 civic bodies were pending, how can the ECI hold by-election in West Bengal.
For the election to be held before November 4, the notification has to be issued by the ECI by mid-September. But with the festive season coming up, it would be unlikely that the election process would start before the end of Diwali. And if that happens, Banerjee would have to resign.
The other option, which looks likely according to the TMC, is that she would resign on November 5 and then swear-in as the chief minister again. It is constitutinally valid. In fact, the party is also planning a scenario where every cabinet member of the government would resign and a new government would be sworn in. In that case, Banerjee can take another six months to contest the election.
“The process of screening of VVPAD and voting machines has already begun. The dates would be declared when the commission would see it would be viable,” said a source.
The ECI will tread cautiously. The Madras High Court bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee had blasted the commission for allowing political rallies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ECI will now create new modalities for the upcoming elections in UP, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Manipur. There will be restrictions about rallies and even phases as well, said a source.