Within hours on Friday, the contest was thrown into extraordinary uncertainty. Nandigram was shaping up as one of Bengal’s most closely watched bypolls.
First, Mamata Banerjee’s candidate walked out of the race after meeting Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. Ritabrata Banerjee hit back in a response to Gandhi, saying his Democratic Trinamool Congress had itself lodged the complaint against Pradhan. “We, the Democratic Trinamool Congress, have lodged a complaint against Milan Pradhan, who has three murder cases pending against him. During elections it’s mandatory to execute the warrant.
Then, after Mamata’s faction decided to back the Congress nominee Milan Pradhan, he was arrested in connection with an old 2007 murder case.
The arrest came amid a curious political crossfire: the complaint, according to Democratic Trinamool Congress leader Ritabrata Banerjee, was filed by his faction – a breakaway Trinamool camp that is itself contesting the Nandigram bypoll. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a post on Friday evening, termed the arrest an act of “political revenge” and accused the BJP of trying to eliminate the electoral contest rather than fight it. “The arrest of Congress candidate Milan Pradhan for the Nandigram by-election is no coincidence – it is political revenge, the murder of democracy,” Gandhi said, adding that the Congress “will neither fear nor bow down” and would “fight – and win. He claimed that three murder cases were pending against the Congress candidate and said police action followed an existing warrant. The state Congress leadership probably has not intimated the actual details to Sri Rahul Gandhi,” he said. Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that the coming together of all the anti-BJP forces has rattled the ruling party.
