The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat, Nisith Pramanik, having as many as 11 criminal cases pending against him, the Trinamool Congress has now approached the Election Commission seeking his arrest.
According to Rabindranath Ghosh, Trinamool Congress Coochbehar district president and a minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, “The BJP has picked someone who was thrown out by my party for indulging in criminal activities. He will be a threat to holding peaceful elections in the constituency.”
The 33-year-old candidate has declared that he has 11 cases pending against him, the oldest case being as early as 2009. Pramanik was with the Trinamool Congress before being expelled for alleged anti-party activities. Then he went on to join the BJP. A criminal case was filed against Pramanik even the day before he joined BJP, in which he was accused of preparing for dacoity and possessing illegal arms.
Pramanik’s hometown is in Dinhata, near the Bangladesh border in north Bengal and he also has a murder charge against him in a case registered there in April 2018. Among the cases against him, there is also an attempt to murder and two rioting related cases. His affidavit also revealed that he has been accused under the Explosives Act and even booked for outraging the modesty of a woman.
However, Pramanik has claimed that the charges were false and “the people of Coochbehar would give a fitting reply to the accusations”.
Pramanik, who has cleared the state’s secondary level examination, is a businessman by profession, and said in the affidavit that he has Rs 2.25 lakh cash in hand. He has movable and immovable assets of Rs 41.94 lakh and Rs 43 lakh, respectively. BJP workers have been protesting Pramanik’s nomination as the candidate. They took to the streets and even vandalised their own party office to protest the party’s selection. This took place since last Thursday evening after the BJP’s first candidate list was announced.
Party workers have alleged that the BJP leadership in Delhi had taken bribe to nominate the expelled Trinamool Congress leader who was thrown out of the Trinamool Congress on corruption charges. He joined the BJP almost immediately after he was shown the door by the Trinamool Congress, the BJP workers pointed out.
The party workers have also threatened to nominate a BJP member as an independent candidate if the nomination of Nishith Parmanik is not withdrawn immediately.
However, the Bengal BJP’s top bosses have said they are not bothered by these agitations. According to Dilip Ghosh, the party’s state chief, since the BJP is going through a good phase, it is but natural that a lot of people wanted to be nominated as BJP candidates for the coming elections, and hence “these things are bound to happen”, he has said earlier. Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya too has said the party is not worried about the allegations. He blamed the Trinamool Congress for making such accusations.
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