KOLKATA: In what is almost certain, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA from Bhowanipore constituency Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay today resigned from his seat, making way for party supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee to contest the by-polls from the constituency.

He submitted his resignation to the assembly speaker Biman Banerjee who told reporters that he has enquired from him if he has resigned voluntarily and without coercion and was satisfied. "I am satisfied, and I have accepted his resignation," he said. 

Banerjee had lost from Nandigram in the recently concluded elections to her former aide-turned-BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari. To continue as the CM she has to win a seat in the by-polls and become a member of the state legislative assembly within six months.

Chattopadhyay had won from Bhowanipore defeating BJP's actor-political rival Rudranil Ghosh by a margin of nearly 28,000 votes and was appointed as the Minister of Agriculture among the 43 ministers in the new cabinet.

Bhawanipore has been Banerjee's traditional seat from where she won twice, in 2011 and 2016, however in the run-up to the assembly elections when Adhikari quit TMC to join BJP she declared at a rally on January 18 that she would contest from Nandigram instead of Bhawanipore. She is also a registered voter from Bhawanipore.

According to party sources Chattopadhyay is likely to contest from Khardah seat, where by-polls has been necessitated following the death of party leader Kajal Sinha due to COVID-19 infection.