Kolkata, April 3 The BJP candidate from the Mathabhanga constituency in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district, Nishith Pramanik, has 16 criminal cases pending against him, including murder and rioting, according to his election affidavit.
Pramanik, a former Union minister, has not been convicted in any case.
The opposition party claimed that the criminal cases against Pramanik were fabricated and a result of political vendetta by the Mamata Banerjee dispensation.
In a 2020 criminal case lodged against him at the Mathabhanga police station, the BJP candidate has been accused of murder and rioting armed with deadly weapons.
The 40-year-old Pramanik was the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs from 2021 to 2024. He sought re-election from the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat in 2024 as a BJP candidate but lost to the TMC.
The latest criminal case against him was lodged in March 2024, where he was accused of preparing and assembling to commit robbery and possession of illegal arms.
Of the 16 cases, 11 were registered between 2018 and 2024, and the others between 2009 and 2014, as per the affidavit.
He joined the BJP in 2019 after he was expelled from the Trinamool Congress in 2018 over allegedly putting up several independents in that year's panchayat polls in the state against party-nominated contestants in the district.
A Cooch Behar district functionary of the BJP claimed that the criminal cases against Pramanick were fabricated and a result of political vendetta against him by the TMC government.
He said that most cases against Pramanik were registered after he severed ties with the Trinamool Congress and subsequently joined the BJP.
Among the charges brought against him in the criminal cases are those of cheating, criminal intimidation, attempt to murder, wrongful restraint, house trespass, preventing a public servant from performing duty and unlawful assembly.
The BJP candidate stated that his annual income in the financial year 2025-26 was Rs 2.96 lakh and Rs 10.39 lakh in the previous fiscal.
Pramanik stated in the affidavit that he passed the West Bengal Board Class 10 examination.
The BJP had wrested the Mathabhanga assembly seat from the TMC in the 2021 election.
