Nomination of Trinamool Congress(TMC) backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal, has been cancelled on the grounds that the affidavit he submitted was incomplete. “My nomination was incomplete and I was given a chance to change that before the scrutiny on the 16th of March, which I have done. It is a curable defect and have pleaded for that (to the returning officer),” said Dinesh Bajaj.
The returning officer cancelled Dinesh Bajaj’s nomination on Tuesday, which makes it almost certain to be an uncontested way forward for the TMC and the Left and Congress combined.
Bajaj’s name was submitted along with five other names for nomination to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal. While four names were submitted from the Trinamool Congress(TMC), one has been submitted from the Left and Congress combined.
The TMC had backed Bajaj as an independent candidate, which would have put the 5th name as a contest between Bajaj and CPI(M) and Left combined backed Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya is a High court lawyer and has been the former Mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. He also contested from the Jadavpur constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but lost out to TMC’s Mimi Chakraborty.
“When Dinesh Bajaj’s nomination was filed, we saw that the affidavit is incomplete to which questions were raised. We are happy that the Election Commission has cancelled Dinesh Bajaj’s nomination as per the law. Now there is no contest, all five candidates will emerge victorious,” said Bikash Bhattacharya who said that he would have also been happy had it been a contested fight as he would have still won.
The four candidates from TMC include Mausam Noor, Dinesh Trivedi, Subrata Bakshi and Arpita Ghosh will also win easily with Bajaj’s nomination being cancelled. The last date of withdrawal of nominations is on Wednesday, after which the winner’s names as Rajya Sabha MPs will be announced.
