'OPPN IS NOT ON GROUND': EX-CALCUTTA JUDGE AND BJP CANDIDATE FROM TAMLUK, ABHIJIT GANGOPADHYAY

Kolkata: Former Calcutta HC Judge and BJP candidate from Tamluk Lok Sabha seat, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay on Saturday said that the opposition seems absent from the ground and is not very active in election race. The former judge said he does not undermine the opposition but they are not on ground.

"I do not underestimate them (opposition), but I find that they are not on the ground. They are absent from the contest," he said after filing nomination from Bengal's Tamluk, reported ANI.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay will face TMC's Debangshu Bhattacharya. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, TMC's Adhikari Dibyendu won from the Tamluk seat after garnering 724433 votes. He had defeated BJP's Sidharthashankar Naskar who got 534268 votes, the ANI report added.

Voting in the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat will take place conducted on May 25 in Phase 6. West Bengal, which sends 42 MPs, to Parliament, is voting in all seven phases. In the first two phases on April 19 and April 26, polling for six Lok Sabha seats in Bengal was held.

Polling for the remaining parliamentary seats will be held on May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1. The results will be declared on June 4.

TMCs seats had dropped in 2019 to 22 from 34 in 2014 which the BJP, which got only 2 seats in 2014, won 18 in the 2019 general elections.

One of the most closely-watched election battles this Lok Sabha election will be held in West Bengal's Tamluk, where former judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, and the TMC's Debangshu Bhattacharya will have a heated faceoff.

Gangopadhyay was at the centre of controversy earlier this month when he resigned as judge to enter politics. He joined the BJP soon afterwards. Gangopadhyay and the West Bengal government have often been at loggerheads. The former judge made headlines last year after he hauled up the state government for alleged irregularities in teacher recruitment by the West Bengal School Service Commission.

2024-05-05T03:58:48Z dg43tfdfdgfd