Kolkata, June 5 (). A public interest litigation was filed in the Calcutta High Court on Monday demanding immediate cancellation of the legislature of MLA Byron Biswas. He has recently left the Congress party and joined the Trinamool Congress.
Three months ago, Biswas was elected as the Left Front-backed Congress candidate in the bypoll to Sagardighi assembly constituency in Murshidabad district. However, it was only last week that he joined the Trinamool Congress in the presence of the party’s national general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee.
The PIL has been filed by Calcutta High Court senior advocate Soumya Shubhra Roy. He had sent a letter on June 1 to the offices of West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay and the Chief Election Commissioner of India with the same demand.
Finally, after getting no response from either of the two offices, Roy filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Calcutta High Court.
In the PIL, Roy has argued that since the majority of voters in Sagardighi had chosen Biswas as the Congress candidate, he betrayed their sentiments by joining the Trinamool and therefore has no basis for him to continue as an MLA. The matter is likely to come up for hearing next week.
However, Biswas is claiming that since he was the lone representative of the Congress in the West Bengal Assembly, the anti-defection law does not apply to him. Also, even if he has to resign, he is confident of winning again from Sagardighi as a Trinamool Congress candidate.
State Congress president and veteran party MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary had claimed that if he was confident of his victory as a Trinamool Congress candidate, he should immediately resign and contest again.
akj
Follow Niharika Times for all the big news from India and abroad. Like us on Facebook and Twitter . Always visit Niharika Times for latest news.