Bengal polls: Trinamool announces 291 candidates, axes tainted leaders, Mamata to contest from Bhabanipur

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday announced 291 candidates for the two-phase April elections to the 294-member West Bengal Assembly, dropping almost all the leaders under the scanner of central agencies in various scams, while nearly a fifth of the nominees are women.

There are a total of 52 women candidates, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, or around 18 per cent of the total candidates. The Chief Minister is contesting from Bhabanipur in south Kolkata, where the BJP candidate is the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. Adhikari, who had defeated Banerjee in Nandigram in the 2021 polls, is also fighting from there too.

At Nandigram, Trinamool has fielded erstwhile local BJP leader and Adhikari’s close confidant, Pabitra Kar, who joined the party just a couple of hours before the Chief Minister released the party candidates’ list.

The Trinamool has denied renomination to all the sitting MLAs and former ministers, except one, who had substantial time behind bars after being arrested by central investigating agencies in various corruption cases, like the school-job case and PDS distribution case, among others.

Former Secretary General and Education Minister, Partha Chatterjee, who was jailed for around three years in connection with the school job case, has been denied re-nomination from his traditional Behala (Paschim) constituency in South 24 Parganas district.

Manik Bhattacharya from Palashipara in Nadia district and Jiban Krishna Saha from Barwan in Murshidabad district have also been dropped.

The only exception is former Food & Supplies Minister, Jyotipriya Mallick, who had spent a substantial period behind bars after being arrested in connection with the multi-crore PDS distribution case. He had been re-nominated from his old constituency of Habra in the North 24 Parganas district.

Most of the other sitting ministers have been re-nominated from their erstwhile constituencies. There had been no new faces in the candidate list from the silver-screen or glamour world, and apparently, it was evident that attempts had been made to prepare the list with a balanced combination of “old guards” and “new faces”.

Three assembly constituencies in the North Bengal hills, namely Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Kurseong, have been allotted to the Trinamool’s political ally in the hills, Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), founded by Anit Thapa, who is also the Chief Executive of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

“This time our candidates will win from at least 226 Assembly constituencies. After the elections, this type of BJP will have no ground in West Bengal,” Banerjee said after releasing the list.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Trinamool won 215 seats, while the BJP secured 77 seats. The CPI-M-led Left Front, the Congress, and the All India Secular Front (AISF) had a seat-sharing arrangement in 2021. While AISF managed to win one seat, both the Left Front and the Congress failed to win any seats at all.

IANS