Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) suffered another major political jolt on Saturday as Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, the party’s candidate for the Rejinagar by-election, decided to withdraw his nomination.
Chowdhury has announced his decision to withdraw his candidature, citing the primary reason as the failure to secure the Trinamool Congress party symbol—the ‘Twin Flowers’, news agency ANI reported. On the other hand, Pradhan Dey had met chief minister Suvendu Adhikari along with her husband Satyajit before withdrawing her nomination, a day ahead of the deadline, news agency PTI reported. “The arrest of Congress candidate Milan Pradhan for the Nandigram by-election is no coincidence—it is political revenge, the murder of democracy. Mamata Banerjee has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission’s decision to freeze the Trinamool Congress’ name and party symbol amid a dispute between two rival factions of the TMC.
Leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, in a post on X, claimed on Friday that Pradhan’s arrest was “no coincidence,” but rather politically motivated. The BJP has no faith in fair elections—that’s why it wants to cling to power sometimes through vote theft, sometimes through stealing governments, and sometimes through stealing parties,” Gandhi said. In her petition filed before the SC on Friday, the ex-CM challenged the poll panel’s interim order passed on Thursday, freezing the original party symbol and asking both factions to choose a name and symbol of their choice, as HT reported earlier .
