BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari has moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s petition after the Calcutta High Court ordered to preserve EVMs used in Nandigram assembly seat in this year’s polls.
The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to Adhikari on a petition filed by Mamata Banerjee. The single judge Bench of Justice Shampa Sarkar had said, “As per the office report, the election petition does not suffer from any defect as provided in Section 86(1) of the Representation of People Act, 1951. Let notice be issued in terms of Rule 24 of the Election Petition Rules framed by this Court. The matter is made returnable on August 12, 2021.”
Banerjee, who had fought from the Nandigram seat against her former aide Suvendu Adhikari, had lost the seat by 1,700 votes. She had later alleged electoral fraud during a news conference.
“They announced me the winner and after that, they are saying something else. Some looting is going on. We will go to the court,” she had told reporters immediately after her party swept the Bengal polls with a landslide victory.
Her case was first set to be heard by Justice Kaushik Chanda, but he later recused himself after Banerjee accused him of having a close connection with the BJP from his time as a lawyer.