Kolkata: As Congress’s Nandigram candidate Milan Pradhan’s wife Arpita thanked Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee for supporting her husband, the party’s state chief Subhankar Sarkar said the Nandigram and Rejinagar bypolls will decide the course of opposition politics in Bengal.Arpita was in tears while speaking to reporters at Bidhan Bhawan on Thursday. “I don’t know much about politics. I am thankful to Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee for their support. My husband was arrested in false cases,” she said.Pradhan was arrested in cases linked to the 2007 Nandigram movement on Sept 18.She added that both her husband and now chief minister Suvendu Adhikari were at the forefront of the Nandigram agitation. “Why should my husband be jailed now? The situation has become so grim that my daughter can’t even go to school,” she said.Asked if she wanted Banerjee to campaign for her husband, she said, “I want everyone to stand with us.”Banerjee had announced her support for the Congress candidate after her party’s nominee Sanchita Pradhan Dey withdrew from the contest.Congress’s Bengal in-charge Prakash Joshi called Pradhan’s arrest “politics of vendetta” and said BJP was spooked after his party named Pradhan its candidate for the bypolls. “They know of Pradhan’s popularity since the Nandigram movement,” he said.Arpita is slated to campaign in Nandigram Bazaar on Friday, although police have denied permission for the rally.Sources within Mamata Trinamool said discussions are underway on whether the former CM would herself campaign for Pradhan in Nandigram.
