Calcutta, July 28: Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, the Left Front nominee for the Rajya Sabha polls, today raced against time to submit his nomination papers for the August 8 election.

At the Bengal Assembly - the venue for submission of nomination papers - Bhattacharyya, accompanied by his party peers and a team of lawyers, argued with officials representing the poll panel on whether the documents were filed by the 3pm deadline.

"I have submitted my nomination papers and they have been accepted by the returning officer. We had a difference of opinion on the submission time of an additional affidavit, which is optional in nature," Bhattacharyya said while coming out of Assembly secretary Jayanta Koley's office.

Koley is the ex-officio returning officer for the Rajya Sabha polls in Bengal, representing the commission.

While the former Calcutta mayor and senior advocate practising in the high court contended that he did everything in line with the rulebook, sources in the Assembly secretariat said that the additional affidavit was submitted around five minutes after the deadline.

Koley could not be contacted by this newspaper for comment in spite of several calls to his phone. Sources said the delay in submission of the additional affidavit, comprising undertakings that the candidate doesn't owe anything to any government, might result in cancellation of Bhattacharyya's candidature.

This is the first time, sources said, that Nirvachan Sadan has made the affidavit a part of the nomination papers that the candidates need to file to contest the Rajya Sabha polls.

"I was with our candidate.... I distinctly remember that we submitted the papers at 2.58pm. There is no question of any delay," said Sujan Chakraborty, leader of the Left legislature party.

"I was told by the returning officer that his watch was set 15 minutes in advance as part of his usual practice. So, I don't know which time is being talked about," he added.

Chakraborty, who met Koley tonight, alleged a "possible conspiracy" and said the party could move court challenging the cancellation, if that is the decision in the end.

Even as the Left team claimed that they were on time and followed the rulebook, sources said the candidate didn't seem to be fully prepared with the papers and the additional affidavit was submitted after placing all other papers with the officials.

"They may be talking about maintaining the time schedule, but there is no doubt that they came in the last hour.... Had they come two hours before, this confusion would not have occurred. This is unheard of from Left candidates," said an Assembly old-timer.

Traditionally, the Left parties have been among the first to announce the candidates and file the nomination papers after scrupulous scrutiny at the respective party offices by experts on electioneering. The Left used to be infallible with paperwork.

This time, the Left formally named its nominee only this morning although nominations could have been filed from July 21.

Besides, the manner in which the Left nominee and his team conducted themselves at the Assembly raised several questions.

"All of us know that the Bengal unit of the CPM didn't want to contest the polls, and they put up the candidate only because of the decision of the central committee, where the hardliners from Kerala vetoed the Bengal unit's decision. I won't be surprised if today's faux pas is intentional," said an Assembly insider.

Sources said a cancellation need not displease certain sections of the CPM that did not agree with the hardliner stand that prevailed at the central committee. The sources said the cancellation would mean that the Left fielded a candidate, in line with the CPM central committee decision, but in the end there was no contest.

"The cancellation, if deliberately manipulated, would send out a strong message from Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan to AK Gopalan Bhavan -that the Bengal lobby was no longer willing to take the Kerala lobby's decisions lying down," said a source.

"Besides, there would also be a message for the pro-truck state Congress that the Bengal lobby was willing to continue collaborating, even under the radar, with them," he added.