Haldia: BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who filed his nomination on Friday from the Nandigram seat where he will be fighting the upcoming assembly elections against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, urged people not to vote for "outsiders", as he flayed the ruling party for betraying the trust of people.
"I would appeal to all of you to not waste your votes in favour of outsiders, who have betrayed your trust and aspirations after coming to power in 2011," said Adhikari, who recently became a voter in Nandigram from Kanthi in East Midnapore district.
Adhikari filed his papers at the sub-divisional office in Haldia after leading a-km-long roadshow. Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani also took part in the rally before Adhikari filed the nomination papers.
He claimed that the Trinamool Congress has turned into a private limited company, where other leaders "neither have a say in policy-making of the party nor in the state government".
"Everybody else, apart from the aunt and nephew (Mamata and TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee), are lamp posts in the party," Adhikari said.
Adhikari, who switched over to the BJP in December, is up against the chief minister who decided to challenge him at his home ground.
Adhikari won the Nandigram seat as a TMC candidate in 2016 by bagging over 67 per cent of the votes, defeating his nearest rival of the CPI by a margin of 81,230 votes.
Meanwhile, the health condition of West Bengal Chief MInister Mamata Banerjee, who is nursing injuries suffered during poll campaigning at Nandigram, is stable and her improvement is satisfactory, doctors said on Friday.
Banerjee slept well at night and is responding well to treatment, said doctors at the state-run SSKM hospital, where the TMC supremo was rushed to on Wednesday after being allegedly pushed by unknown people while campaigning for the assembly elections in Nandigram in Purba Medinipore district.
Banerjee had filed her nomination on Wednesday.
The Left-led grand alliance has fielded CPI(M)'s youth leader Minakshi Mukherjee from the seat.