Don't elect him: TMC candidate's estranged wife after joining BJP
Times of India | 12 May 2024
KALYANI: From closed courtrooms, marital acrimony stepped into Ranaghat's poll battlefield on Saturday, as TMC candidate Mukut Mani Adhikari's estranged wife made appeals to the public to not vote for Adhikari. Swastika Vubaneshwari, as she took the BJP flag from BJP's star campaigner Mithun Chakraborty, referred to her broken marriage and made the appeal hours before campaigning was set to end in Ranaghat, so that no one "had to suffer like" her. Ranaghat goes to polls on Monday.
Vubaneshwari was being gently prodded by "uncle" Ranaghat BJP candidate Jaganath Sarkar as she spoke. Adhikari, who had mentioned in his poll affidavit the cases lodged against him by Vubaneshwari, did not speak on the issue. The case is sub judice in an Alipore court. Vubaneshwari said there was another case being heard in the high court.
TMC has fielded BJP candidate Saumitra Khan's former wife Sujata Mondal in Bishnupur.
Battling an obvious discomfort to address people at a poll arena, Vubaneshwari said: "I was in Copenhagen then. They (Adhikari and his family) had repeatedly come to my doorstep with marriage proposals. After the registry on May 28, 2023, however, Adhikari left, and has been completely without trace. He has duped me and my mother. It is my plea...do not vote for him...you will have to suffer like me."
Incidentally, the allegations against Adhikari were made in June 2023 when he was a BJP MLA.