Krishnagar, May 29: Nadia district officials are in a fix, having declared a CPI-ML candidate the winner in a Ranaghat panchayat only to realise she had lost by 22 votes to her CPM rival.

Sikha Biswas, the CPI-ML candidate for the Khima gram panchayat, has refused to return the winner’s certificate she was given by block development officer (BDO) Amit Bose on May 22.

Some villagers have decided to block the entry of CPM candidate Kalyani Mondal, whom the district administration has now declared the winner after scrapping Sikha’s certificate.

Government officials said it was a mistake on their part: Bose, the returning officer, had overlooked a set of ballots.

A clerk from the BDO’s office went to Sikha’s home on Monday and handed her a letter saying her certificate had been cancelled.

“I was stunned when I heard I was not the winner. Everybody in the village knew I had won by defeating a CPM candidate. But the administration wrote to me saying I had been declared the winner by mistake,” Sikha said.

“I will never accept such a letter. I will move court.”

Sikha’s husband Susanta said: “Our supporters were overjoyed having defeated the CPM in the area for the first time in 30 years. But now the administration has issued another certificate under pressure from the CPM.”

On May 22, Bose had told Sikha she had defeated her nearest rival Kalyani by 26 votes. Today, he refused comment.

Jayanta Duttagupta, joint secretary at the state election commission, said he could not recall any provision in election rules specifying what should be done in such a case.

“Now that a winner’s certificate has been given to a candidate, this case has to be resolved in court,” he said.

Kalyani said that when she saw Sikha and her supporters celebrating before counting had been completed, she went up to Bose and asked what the matter was.

“It was then found that the counting figures from one of the tables had not yet come. When the counting was completed, I was declared the winner,” Kalyani said.

Ranaghat subdivisional officer Shew Kumar Ram admitted that it was the BDO’s mistake.

“When the mistake was detected, we sent a letter to Sikha Biswas. But she refused to accept the letter,” Ram said, adding she was told her certificate stood cancelled. “The CPM candidate is the winner.”