Hooghly, 10 April (H.S.): Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Bhaskar Bhattacharya on Friday alleged that the Trinamool Congress was “afraid” of the BJP and was attempting to push it out of the electoral contest in Serampore.

Addressing a press conference, Bhattacharya said objections were raised by the TMC during the scrutiny of his nomination papers earlier in the day. He claimed that the Returning Officer, however, showed all relevant documents to the complainant, following which the matter was clarified.

The BJP candidate alleged that the ruling party was resorting to “various tactics” to prevent him from contesting the election, but asserted that such efforts would not succeed.

Bhattacharya further claimed that a person with a similar name had been fielded as an Independent candidate to confuse voters in the constituency. He appealed to voters to cast their votes by identifying the BJP’s “lotus” symbol.

Efforts to contact Tanmay Ghosh for a response to the allegations were unsuccessful.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Priyanka Pandey