War of words breaks out on social media between Rahul Gandhi, Ritabrata Banerjee over arrest of Congress candidate for Nandigram bypolls

KOLKATA — A war of words broke out on social media between Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and the leader of the rebel faction of the Trinamool Congress, Ritabrata Banerjee over the arrest of Milan Pradhan, the Congress candidate for the Nandigram Assembly bypoll in East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

Milan Pradhan was arrested on Friday evening, just hours after Sanchita Dey Pradhan, the erstwhile candidate from the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee for the Nandigram bypoll, withdrew her nomination and the former West Bengal Chief Minister announced her support for the Congress candidate.

LoP Gandhi made a social media post on Friday night claiming that the arrest of Pradhan was a political revenge and the murder of democracy.

“The BJP has no faith in fair elections—that's why it wants to cling to power sometimes through vote theft, sometimes through stealing governments, and sometimes through stealing parties. They don't want to contest elections; they want to end the electoral fight altogether. The Congress will neither fear nor bow down. We will fight—and we will win,” said LoP Gandhi in his social media statement.

Just an hour after that, Ritabrata reacted to the social media statement from LoP Gandhi and said that the arrest of Milan Pradhan followed a complaint registered by the Trinamool Congress faction led by him.

“We, the Democratic Trinamool Congress, have lodged a complaint against Milan Pradhan, who has three murder cases pending against him. During elections it’s mandatory to execute the warrant. The State Cong Leadership probably has not intimated the actual details to Sri @RahulGandhi,” alleged Ritabrata in his statement.

Friday was an eventful day for West Bengal politics. The Election Commission of India (ECI), which had on Thursday announced the freezing of the name 'All India Trinamool Congress' and the symbol 'Flowers & Grass', on Friday, allotted new names and symbols to the two factions of the Trinamool Congress.

While Mamata Banerjee's party was allotted the name 'Mamata All India Trinamool Congress' and the symbol 'Football Player', the Ritabrata-led rebel faction was allotted the name of 'Democratic Trinamool Congress' and the new symbol of 'Envelope' by the poll panel.