TMC struggles to find candidate for Nandigram bypoll

TWo Trinamool u.s. Congress (TMC) leaders feature refused to repugn the bye-election for the Nandigram assemblage seat in East Midnapore district which West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari won in April, along with his second seat, Kolkata’s Bhabanipur, where he defeated three-time chief minister Mamata Banerjee.After taking the oath as the Bhabanipur legislator on May 13, Adhikari announced that Nandigram would have a new MLA as per the rules but he would continue to look after its voters as his own.Although the bypoll is yet to be announced, speculations on a possible TMC candidate have started.“Some people approached me but I cannot contest from Nandigram again. The question does not arise,” said Pabitra Kar, who left the Bharatiya Janata Party to unsuccessfully challenge Adhikari last month.Kar joined TMC in the presence of its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee within hours of leaving the BJP where he was known to be one of Adhikari’s old aides.A similar reply came from TMC’s Sheikh Sufiyan, a veteran district leader who served as Mamata Banerjee’s election agent at Nandigram in the 2021 assembly polls when Adhikari defeated her.“I contested from Nandigram way back in 2006. Nobody in the TMC asked me to contest after that. I am not interested in elections any more. I am retiring from active politics following my family’s advice,” Sufiyan, who lost the 2006 election to Communist Party of India’s Sheikh Muhammad Iliyas, said.“The candidate will be decided by Mamata Banerjee and it is too early to comment. Let the polls be announced,” a senior TMC leader said, requesting anonymity.On May 13, Adhikari said, “I had to follow my party’s decision. Someone else will be elected from Nandigram but I promise that in the next five years I will not let the people of Nandigram feel even once that I am not their MLA. All promises I made during the campaign will be kept.”Adhikari has toured Nandigram several times and thanked voters after the BJP won 207 of Bengal’s 294 seats against the TMC’s 80. On Sunday evening, Nandigram voters held a grand reception for him.The BJP central leadership fielded Adhikari from Nandigram, which he has won thrice since 2016, as well as Bhabanipur.Adhikari defeated the TMC chairperson in the April 29 elections by 15,105 votes and Pabitra Kar in the April 23 polls by 9,665 votes.In the 2021 polls, Adhikari defeated Banerjee by 1,956 votes in Nandigram, forcing her to win a by-poll at her Bhabanipur seat to continue as chief minister.Adhikari won the Nandigram assembly seat in his home district for the first time in 2016 when he was a TMC Lok Sabha member from the district’s Tamluk constituency. He resigned from the Lok Sabha and became a cabinet minister. He left TMC in December 2020 following differences with the leadership and joined the BJP in the run-up to the 2021 elections.Another contestant won two seats in the recent two-phase elections.Humayun Kabir, the TMC’s Bharatpur legislator in Murshidabad district before his suspension, won both the Nowda and Rejinagar seats for his newly-launched Aam Janata Unnayan Party. Kabir was suspended in December, 2025 for laying the foundation stone of a mosque modelled on Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid.“I will represent Nawda. The Election Commission will decide the date of the by-poll,” Kabir said after taking oath as an MLA.