Mamata Banerjee vs Suvendu Adhikari: Calcutta HC lists Nandigram election plea for next Thursday – Hindustan Times

The Calcutta high court on Friday deferred to June 24 hearing in the petition filed by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee challenging Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari’s Nandigram win in the 2021 state assembly elections. The high-profile case was slated to be heard virtually by Justice Kausik Chanda at 11am today. “Let the matter be listed next Thursday. In the meantime, the Registrar shall file a report before this court as to whether the petition has been filed in conformity with the Representation of People Act,” the Calcutta HC directed in its Friday order.

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The Calcutta high court began hearing West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s petition on Friday. When the matter was listed before Justice Chanda, the chief minister’s counsel Soumendra Nath Mukherjee requested that the matter be deferred to next week. The court accepted the request, listing the matter for next Thursday, i.e. June 24.

Even though the Trinamool Congress (TMC) returned to power for the third consecutive term, Mamata Banerjee lost to her former aide Suvendu Adhikari by a narrow margin of 1,956 votes. This was Banerjee’s first electoral loss in over three decades, one that saw several twists and turns throughout the high-stakes counting process.

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The TMC chief had, on May 3, a day after the election results were announced, said that she would move court. Banerjee’s petition alleges that the votes were not counted properly. “We will definitely move court. Our party workers are also staging a protest. We want a written statement from the Election Commission of India [EC] that the EVM machine, VVPAT, and postal ballots will be kept separately so that they are not tampered with. And if found tampered with, they will have to undergo forensic tests,” Banerjee had said.

Before and during the assembly elections, the TMC was at loggerheads with EC, with the ruling party repeatedly accusing the poll panel of working at the behest of the BJP-led government at the Centre. Both the BJP and the commission had, however, refuted such charges.