Kolkata, April 2 – The Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, will file his nomination from the Bhabanipur constituency in South Kolkata as a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday, in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Shah had arrived in Kolkata on Wednesday night. He will participate in a large roadshow within the Bhabanipur constituency along with Adhikari before the latter files his nomination.
"Shah and Adhikari will begin their roadshow from the Hazra intersection, which will start at noon today. After the roadshow, Adhikari will file his nomination at the Alipore Survey Building. The convoy will stop 200 meters before the Alipore Survey Building. The Union Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will then walk the remaining distance, enter the Alipore Survey Building, and Adhikari will file his nomination," said a member of the BJP's state committee.
In Bhabanipur, Adhikari is contesting against the incumbent Trinamool Congress legislator from the constituency and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Adhikari is also contesting from his native constituency of Nandigram in East Midnapore district, where he has been a two-time legislator, first for the Trinamool Congress from 2016 to 2021, and then for the BJP from 2021 to the present.
In 2021, Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress candidate, by a margin of slightly less than 2,000 votes. She later won a by-election from Bhabanipur and continued to serve as Chief Minister for a third consecutive term.
The contest in Bhabanipur is attracting attention not only because it is a contest between the incumbent Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, but also because of the impact of the voter deletion.
Bhabanipur will go to the polls with 47,000 fewer voters, who have been deleted from the final voter list published on February 28. The names of a few thousand more voters have also been referred to ongoing judicial adjudication after being classified under the "logical discrepancy" category.
The Chief Minister has accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of mass-scale deletion of voters in Bhabanipur. However, she claims that she will win from Bhabanipur even with a margin of just one vote.
