Nandigram poll: Congress candidate Milan Pradhan arrested hours after getting Mamata’s support

Congress candidate Milan Pradhan (L) and Mamata Banerjee (R). File. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangements, ANI

Congress candidate Milan Pradhan for the Nandigram constituency by-election was arrested on Friday (September 18, 2026) by the West Bengal police in an old case. This comes an hour after Mamata Banerjee said she would support the Congress candidate after her own candidate withdrew the nomination.

“I am shocked by the aggressive mentality of the Bharatiya Janata Party, they will not let anyone contest the elections. Will there be no other party and no democracy?” Congress state president Subhankar Sarkar said this after their candidate was arrested.

Mr. Sarkar also said that their candidate has been receiving threats that he may be detained by the police and that he is worried about his safety.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge criticized Mr. Pradhan’s arrest, saying it was a “brazen attempt to chori voters and chunav chori (theft of voters and elections)”. “BJP is so insecure that even in by-elections it is misusing agencies to target and arrest an opposition candidate. Congress will not be cowed or silenced,” he said in a post on X.

Sources in the Congress claimed that WBPCC General Secretary Subhasish Bhattacharya was also arrested.

“Mr. Pradhan is a strong candidate; hence his arrest in an old case is not a good image of democracy. If the arrest warrant for him has been pending for so long, then what have you been doing for so long? It is completely politically motivated,” senior Congress leader and spokesperson Suman Roy Choudhuri told The Hindu on Friday (September 18, 2026).

Mr. Pradhan was one of the foremost leaders during the Nandigram protests, according to Congress leaders.

On Friday afternoon (September 18, 2026), Sanchita Pradhan (De), Mamata’s All India Trinamool Congress candidate for Nandigram, withdrew her nomination after an alleged meeting with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.

However, police sources said that this arrest had nothing to do with the elections and the arrest was only based on an old case against Mr. Pradhan.

Nandigram is a prestigious constituency for all parties in the elections as it is the home bastion of Chief Minister Suvenda Adhikari and he has already won from this seat in the parliamentary elections for which he resigned and retained the position of MLA in Bhabanipur seat. Mr. Adhikari won this seat by 9665 votes in the 2026 election. In the 2021 election, Ms. Banerjee lost to Mr. Adhikari in this seat by a margin of 1956 votes.

Published – 18 Sep 2026 18:36 IST