BJP to cite Rawat's removal to put pressure on Mamata; WB wants early bypolls to get CM elected

State minister and senior TMC leader Sobhandeb has recently vacated the seat

The Government of West Bengal has written to the Election Commission, suggesting that the bypolls to fill seven vacancies in the state assembly should be held as soon as possible since the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has been on the wane.

Mamata Banerjee’s government in Kolkata has written to the EC, amid speculation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could use its removal of Tirath Singh Rawat from the post of the Chief Minister in Uttarakhand to step up pressure on the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo to quit the top office in West Bengal.

A source in New Delhi said that the EC had written to West Bengal government seeking its opinion on holding polls in the state to fill up the vacancies in Rajya Sabha.

Banerjee’s government replied, suggesting that not only the Rajya Sabha polls, but the EC could also hold bypolls to fill vacancies in the legislative assembly of the state. The state government conveyed to the poll panel that it was fully prepared to hold the by-elections as the Covid-19 infection rate was coming down, said the source.

The two Rajya Sabha seats of West Bengal are at present vacant. Dinesh Trivedi, who had been elected to the Rajya Sabha on the TMC’s ticket, resigned after switching over to the BJP ahead of the assembly polls. Another TMC MP in Rajya Sabha, Manas Bhunia, quit after being appointed as the state’s water resources minister, following his victory from Sabang, an assembly constituency.

Also read: Mamata Banerjee afraid of losing chief minister's post: Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh

One of the reasons the BJP decided to remove Rawat, who took over as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 10 last, is that he had only two months left to get himself elected to the legislative assembly of the state to continue in the office. It was still uncertain whether the EC would hold a bypoll to help him get elected to the assembly as the state would go to general elections early next year.

The term of the current legislative assembly in Uttarakhand elected in 2017 will expire on March 23.

Like Rawat, Banerjee too is not an elected member of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal led her party to a landslide victory in the assembly polls held in March-April this year, but lost to her protege-turned-foe Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP in Nandigram. She commenced her third term as the Chief Minister of West Bengal on May 5 last and now has four more months to get elected to the legislative assembly in order to continue at the helm of the state government.

The Section 151 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, requires the EC to conduct by-election to fill any vacancy in any legislative assembly or councils in any state or the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha within six months from the date of creation of the vacancy, provided that the remainder of the term in relation to the vacancy is one year or more. The sub-section (b) of the Section 151 of the R P Act, however, allows the EC to postpone by-elections, if it certifies in consultation with the Central Government that it would be difficult to hold the by-election within the stipulated period of six months.

Sovandeb Chattopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress was elected to the legislative assembly from Bhabanipur during the recent elections in West Bengal. He, however, resigned from the membership of the State Assembly, apparently to make way for the Trinamool Congress supremo to contest from the constituency. The other constituencies where the EC would have to hold bypolls are Gosaba, Dinhata, Samsherganj, Jangipur, Khardah and Shantipur.