Political slugfest erupts over B'deshi citizenship of Trinamool candidate

Kolkata, May 5 (IANS) A political slugfest has erupted in West Bengal after a division bench of the Calcutta High Court upheld an earlier order of the same court confirming that Alo Rani Sarkar, who unsuccessfully contested the 2021 Assembly elections on a Trinamool Congress ticket from the Bangaon (South) constituency, had been a citizen of Bangladesh when she fought the polls.

Sarkar, who has claimed to have approached the Supreme Court challenging the order of the division bench, said that this question did not arise when she was with the BJP and even contested the 2016 Assembly elections from Bijpur.

"Just because I am with the Trinamool now, such conspiracies are being hatched against me. But I will see through it to the end," she said.

BJP legislator Swapan Majumder, who defeated Sarkar in 2021, said that when the single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court last year accepted that Sarkar was holding Bangladeshi citizenship, she had raised the same point.

Majumder said the BJP leadership had clarified then that when she was with the BJP, the party leadership did not know about her Bangladeshi connections.

"It surfaced only after she joined Trinamool Congress. The Election Commission of India should take necessary action in the matter, and if necessary, arrange her return to Bangladesh. It also needs to be investigated whether she has contacts with underground terror outfits in Bangladesh."

Reacting to the BJP MLA's claims, Sarkar said that Majumder himself is involved in a number of illegal activities.

"He (Majumder) develops perceptions about others on the basis of what he himself is," she said.