Election Commission Rejects TMC’s Demand For Recount of Votes in Nandigram, Mamata Says Will Approach Court

Nandigram: Day after the nail-biting race, Mamata, who was declared the winner by 1,200 votes in Nandigram initially, lost to Adhikari by 1,756 votes. 

Edited By: Surabhi Shaurya

Updated: May 3, 2021, 8:48 AM IST

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https://www.india.com/news/india/nandigram-election-result-2021-election-commission-rejects-trinamool-congress-mamatas-demand-for-recount-of-votes-in-nandigram-4635375/ Copy

Suvendu Adhikari, Mamata Banerjee

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India has rejected TMC’s demand for a recount of votes at Nandigram which saw a tough contest between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her protégé-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari, said reports. On Sunday evening, a Trinamool delegation led by its Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’ Brien, former Mayor Firhad Hakim, MP Kalyan Banerjee and Atin Ghosh met CEO Ariz Aftab and submitted a letter demanding recounting of votes. In the letter, the ruling party alleged that certain ‘preposterous’ and ‘illegal’ things have happened during the counting of votes in Nandigram for which it is demanding immediate recounting.

Notably, day after the nail-biting race, Mamata, who was declared the winner by 1,200 votes in Nandigram initially, lost to Adhikari by 1,756 votes.  The Trinamool, however, did not accept the verdict, claiming that the counting is still on and called the counting process ‘fishy’. Moreover, the party supremo has claimed ‘malpractices’ and said she would approach the courts. “Let the Nandigram people give whatever verdict they want, I accept that. Nandigram was a sacrifice that was needed in the larger victory. We have won the state. But I will go to the court because I have heard there were some malpractices,” she said in her address yesterday.

On the other hand, Adhikari in a tweet congratulated the people of Nandigram for his victory and attached a copy of the tabulation sheet of the last round of counting that shows him winning by a margin of 2,036 votes.

“My sincere thanks to the great People of Nandigram for their love, trust, blessings, and support, and for choosing me as their representative and the MLA from #Nandigram. It is my never-ending commitment to be of service to them and working for their welfare. I am truly grateful!” tweeted the BJP leader.

Hitting back at him Mamata said, “Nandigram is not a matter to me. I have so many seats but something wrong has happened there. The EVMs were tampered. The server was down for four hours. Everywhere we are winning but we have lost there only. The Election Commission worked as a spokesperson of the BJP and now see what they are doing. Three hours back, it said something and now it is saying something else.”

The Nandigram Vidhan Sabha seat was known as a stronghold of the communists from where a CPI candidate was mostly returned except in the 1996 and 2011 Assembly polls. But the agitation against forcible land acquisition by the previous Left Front government led by Mamata Banerjee, had changed the political equation in the area.