The affidavit submitted by BJP’s Nandigram nominee Hasirani Rath lists her highest educational qualification as ‘Class X, Chowkhali Ganga Padma Milan Kanya Vidyapith (ELS.), 1965’, while her age is recorded as over 60, implying a birth year of 1965 or 1966 – a chronological impossibility that the opposition says points to a falsified document.
Congress officials lodged a formal complaint with the Election Commission of India over the alleged error and, in the same filing, asked the Calcutta High Court to cancel Rath’s candidature on grounds of false information, describing the mistake as more than a mere typographical slip.
The BJP dismissed the allegation, stating that Rath was a Class 10 student at the cited school in 1980, not 1965, and that the discrepancy resulted from a clerical oversight rather than intentional deception.
In a separate but related move, the Congress filed a bail petition for its Nandigram candidate Milan Pradhan, who has been arrested in four cases dating back to 2007. A Haldia district court ordered his judicial custody until October 3, 2026, and the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate of Contai extended it to October 7, one day after polling, prompting the party to argue that the timing deprives Pradhan of a fair chance to campaign.
The Calcutta High Court, on September 22, asked the state government to ensure Pradhan could contest the election if bail were granted, and scheduled a hearing on his bail plea for September 24. Both legal battles unfold as the Nandigram and Rejinagar constituencies prepare for voting on October 6, raising questions about candidate eligibility and the impact of judicial interventions on the electoral contest.