How Suvendu Adhikari’s Plea to Transfer Nandigram Case Out of Bengal Could Cost Mamata Banerjee Dearly
West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s decision to move the Supreme Court with a transfer petition for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Nandigram assembly poll result case, which she has filed before the Calcutta High Court, seems to be as much a politico-tactical move as it is legal. Legal observers in Kolkata believe that this could be a “tactic” that may cost Mamata Banerjee dearly, even if temporarily so.
A Bench of Justice Shampa Sarkar at the Calcutta High Court on Thursday adjourned Banerjee’s election petition till November 15, after Adhikari’s counsel Joydeep Kar submitted that his client has moved the apex court for a transfer of the case outside the state on the apprehension that he may not be privy to a fair trial in West Bengal.
What’s important here is the fact that Mamata Banerjee faces a six-month Constitutional deadline to have herself re-elected in a by-election in the state since the day she took oath as chief minister for her third consecutive term despite her close-margin loss to Adhikari in the Nandigram seat by a little over 1,700 votes — a result which now stands challenged before the state’s high judiciary.
That deadline expires on November 5, ten days ahead of the next date of hearing before the High Court, given the fact she took oath on May 5, this year.
In a memo dated August 9, 2021, the Election Commission of India has reached out to all national and state-level political parties asking for their suggestions on how to hold the scheduled State general and by-polls in the wake of the prevailing pandemic.
Many feel that despite Trinamool Congress’s repeated formal appeals before the Commission to quickly hold the by-polls citing improved Covid conditions, the likelihood of the polls taking place within October this year is no more than an outside possibility.
Under the circumstances, and with Banerjee’s petition getting deferred to at least November 15, before which there can be no verdict on whether there would be a re-counting of Nandigram results, the chief minister of West Bengal would have no choice but to temporarily step down. Until, of course, she fights the by-elections and emerges victorious from a seat of her choice, which is likely to be her previous favourite, Bhowanipore.
The legal ramifications aside, some believe that the step itself would score major political brownie points for the BJP and Suvendu Adhikari who was once Banerjee’s trusted lieutenant and has now turned into her arch political rival.
With 75 MLAs in Adhikari’s kitty, it is evident that the Leader of Opposition in the assembly is determined to make things going as difficult as possible for the Trinamool Congress supremo. The ball now rests, fairly and squarely, in Mamata Banerjee’s court, legally and politically, awaiting her next move.
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