Bengal: The Election Commission on Friday rejected the nomination of BJP’s Birbhum Lok Sabha candidate Debashish Dhar as he failed to submit a “no dues” certificate during scrutiny.
Fearing that the nomination of former IPS officer Dhar would be cancelled, BJP had fielded another candidate Debtanu Bhattacharya in Birbhum on Thursday.
“It is mandatory for any person resigning from the service of the Central or State Government to clear his dues before contesting any election. Since Debashish Dhar failed to submit the documents, his nomination was cancelled,” said a senior state government official.
Dhar said he would approach the Calcutta High Court challenging the cancellation of his candidature. A source said Dhar approached the bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
High Court on Friday
But the court refused to accept the case for urgent hearing.
“We had an idea that the court would not interfere during the election process. That is why we fielded a backup candidate,” said a BJP leader.
A BJP source said the state government has not yet accepted the resignation of the police officer.
Three-time Trinamool Congress MP Shatabdi Roy is contesting re-election from Birbhum, where polling will be held on May 13.
Senior BJP leaders said the cancellation of Dhar’s nomination was a result of the vendetta politics of the Mamata Banerjee government.
He said, “We have no complaint with the Election Commission. This is a result of the vindictive politics of the Mamata Banerjee government which tried its best to stop the senior police officer from contesting the elections. We got news of the conspiracy from our sources, which helped us field another candidate here,” said BJP state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay.
Many BJP leaders said that the cancellation of nomination is a matter of embarrassment for them.
“This is shameful for the party as well as the former IPS officer. As Dhar campaigned extensively in the last 15 days, visiting remote areas of the constituency, a large number of voters became familiar with the candidate. Now we will have to present another candidate in all those places in the next 15 days,” said a BJP leader.
Sensing the crisis, senior BJP leaders, including current party candidate Bhattacharya, started trusting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“It is not an issue here who is the candidate because people will vote for our leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji and his performance in the last 10 years. Therefore, change in candidate will not be an issue,” Bhattacharya said.
However, BJP leaders said Bhattacharya is not an unknown face in Birbhum.
Politics because he worked for more than 10 years in the district as an RSS worker before being appointed cluster in-charge of BJP. He currently looks after four Lok Sabha seats including Birbhum and Bolpur.
Satabdi Roy said: “Although he (Dhar) is my rival, I feel sorry for him. However, that or the new face against me, will not make any difference in ensuring my victory.
On the rejection of Dhar’s nomination, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ariz Aftab said, ‘This is a quasi-judicial process. I can’t comment. There may be some lapses in the nomination process and hence, their nomination may have been canceled by the Returning Officer.
