Ritabrata Banerjee
The hearing comes ahead of the Oct 6 assembly bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar, with the nomination process underway and the deadline for filing papers set for Sept 16. Both sides have announced that they will contest the bypolls.
Kolkata/New Delhi: Ahead of back-to-back meetings with Election Commission on Saturday, Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee camp said it has “faith in the Constitution,” while the rebel bloc expressed “faith in Election Commission”.
Speaking to reporters before flying out to Delhi on Friday, Ritabrata said: “After our national working committee (NWC) meeting on June 22, we informed EC on June 23 regarding the election of the new office-bearers.
EC — if it is unable to decide — can pause the process by freezing the Trinamool name and symbol, forcing both camps to contest using reserved symbols for independent candidates, according to party seniors. TMC MP and national secretary Dola Sen said: “Trinamool is Mamata Banerjee and Mamata Banerjee is Trinamool. Adding to this, TMC neta Saket Gokhale said: “The Tenth Schedule is cut and dry. Speaking to PTI, Gokhale said: “The meeting is happening on a Saturday — for the first time ever, not even at the main office — while the BRICS summit is ongoing.
We also met the full bench of EC. We have faith in Election Commission. There is no bigger truth than that. There is a big difference between a parliamentary or legislative party and the parent political party. Is this purely a coincidence? The timing of the meeting looks totally devious. But since Election Commission is a high constitutional body, we will attend.”