Trinamool Congress delegation to meet ECI on holding bypolls for seven Assembly seats

A six-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress is likely to meet the officials of the Election Commission of India (ECI) on July 15 urging the commission to hold bypolls in seven Assembly seats in West Bengal.

Senior party leader and MP Saugata Roy confirmed the delegation and said that the representatives would visit the ECI office in Delhi.

Prior to this, Trinamool Congress chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had urged the ECI to hold bypolls for the vacant seats. She said that the COVID-19 situation in the State had improved to a great extent and suggested that the campaign period for bypolls could be reduced to seven days.

Ms. Banerjee is not a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly having lost the polls at Nandigram by a narrow margin of 1,956 votes. The Chief Minister is most likely to contest the bypolls from Bhawanipur, a seat that has been vacated by Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.

The Dinhata and Santipur seats were vacated by BJP MPs Nisith Pramanik and Jaganath Sarkar. Bypolls are being held at Shamshergunj and Suti as the elections could not be held due to the death of candidates before polls. The candidates who won from Khardah and Gosaba Assembly seats died after the elections.