Kolkata, Sep 21 (IANS) Revolutionary Social Party (RSP), a constituent of the West Bengal Left Front, which fielded its own candidate for the forthcoming Rejinagar assembly bypolls after declaring revolt against the Left Front, on Monday night, announced its decision to refrain from contesting in the Rejinagar bypolls.
A statement has been issued by the RSP’s state secretary in West Bengal, Tapan Hore, in which he claimed that the decision to withdraw its candidate in the Rejinagar bypolls had been prompted by the last-moment decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to deprive the party of its traditional electoral symbol of “spade & stoker” and instead allot the “bucket” symbol for the Rejinagar bypolls.
After the West Bengal Left Front officially nominated the CPI(M) candidate Sayeed Asad Ali as the official Left Front candidate, the RSP leadership declared a revolt and announced the name of Bikash Chandra Mishra as the RSP candidate for the Rejinagar bypolls.
However, amid the ECI’s decision to allot the “bucket” symbol to RSP, denying the party’s rights over the traditional electoral symbol of “spade & stoker”, the RSP leadership became furious and hence announced the decision to withdraw its candidate from the electoral race at Rejinagar.
However, the withdrawal of the candidate will be just symbolic since the last date for withdrawal of nominations had already expired on September 19.
“After the scrutiny ended on Saturday, the Commission informed us that it was not possible to give us our traditional symbol of the “spade & stoker”, and we will have to contest the by-election with the “bucket” symbol. Hence, we have decided to withdraw from the contest in protest against this,” said Tapan Hore in his statement issued on Monday night.
The bypolls for Rejinagar, as well as the Nandigram Assembly Constituency, will be conducted on October 6 and the results will be declared on October 9.
–IANS
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