Calcutta HC grants bail to Milan Pradhan, Cong candidate for Nandigram by-polls

The Calcutta high court on Tuesday granted interim bail to Milan Pradhan, the Congress candidate for the Nandigram bypolls, till October 20. Pradhan, who has been in judicial custody since his arrest on September 18 in murder cases dating to 2007, will now be able to campaign for the bypoll, his lawyers said.

“A bench of justice Tirthankar Ghosh granted interim bail to Pradhan till October 20 in all the six cases. He will now be able to campaign,” Ajitesh Pandey, Pradhan’s advocate said.

Pradhan was arrested on September 18 in a 2007 murder case and later in five other cases, all registered in the same year. Earlier this week two lower courts at Contai and Haldia in East Midnapore sent him to judicial custody till October 7.

Mamata Banerjee, who now heads the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress, a faction of the All India Trinamool Congress, had extended support to Pradhan after her own candidate, Sanchita Pradhan Dey, withdrew her nomination.

By-election in Nandigram was necessitated after West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, who won Nandigram and Bhabanipur in the May assembly polls, decided to retain Bhabanipur and vacated Nandigram.

ECI has announced bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar on October 6. Results will be declared on October 9. The campaign phase ends on October 4.

The Calcutta high court had earlier said that Pradhan must be allowed to contest the Nandigram bypolls properly provided he gets bail in the cases in which he was arrested.

A bench of justice Saugata Bhattacharyya had also expressed surprise that even though all the cases were registered in 2007, the police arrested him in 2026.

“It is surprising that even though the criminal prosecution is of 2007, the police made a prayer for treating the petitioner (Pradhan) as shown arrest before the court in 2026,” the bench had earlier stated.

In a parallel development, a bench of justice Krishna Rao dismissed a petition against Hasi Rani Rath, the BJP’s candidate for the upcoming by-polls in Nandigram.

The Congress had moved the Calcutta high court alleging discrepancies in the affidavit Rath submitted while filing her nomination. While Rath said her age was 60, she also said that she passed the Class X board exam in 1965.