Bharati Ghosh, pacer Ashok Dinda in BJP list of 57 candidates
The high-profile Nandigram Assembly seat will see a titanic clash in the West Bengal polls with the BJP fielding Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s former close aide Suvendu Adhikari against her. The BJP on Saturday released the first list of its 57 candidates for the first two phases of Bengal Assembly elections starting from March 27.
The list released a day ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Brigade rally in Kolkata carries the names of the party’s star campaigner Suvendu Adhikari who will contest from the high-profile seat of Nandigram against Mamata Banerjee.
The other two notable names on the list are former India pacer Ashok Dinda, who will contest from Moyna in East Midnapore, and former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh, who will take on another retired IPS officer Humayun Kabir from Debra Assembly seat in West Midnapore.
The saffron outfit announced candidates for all but three of the 60 seats which will go to polls in the first two of the eight-phase elections that will start from March 27 and end on April 27. One seat of Bagmundi in Purulia district has been left for alliance partner AJSU.
Adhikari who reached Nandigram from Delhi — to a rousing welcome by party supporters shouting Jai Shri Ram slogans — hours before the list was published by the party top brass in the national Capital, attacked the Chief Minister for remembering Nandigram during the elections time only.
“She is a rank outsider here and I am the Bhumiputra (son of the soil)… she remembers Nandigram that catapulted her to power in 2011 only when the polls are round the corner… the people of Nandigram have decided to teach her a lesson,” said Adhikari, who has already vowed to defeat the Chief Minister by half-a-lakh votes.
Reacting to his statements, senior TMC leader Saugato Roy said, “The Trinamool does not want to talk about traitors who have stabbed in the back of Mamata Banerjee. The people will give him a befitting reply.”
Adhikari, a former MP and State Minister left the TMC in December last year. He had been the Man Friday of the Bengal Chief Minister handling the party organisational affairs in about a dozen districts before he left the party.
Mamata had released the list of Trinamool Congress candidates on Friday. The TMC released the list for all the 291 seats and left three seats for alliance partner Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. The Left too had released its list of candidates for the first two phases on Friday.
Meanwhile, intra-TMC unrest that spilled on the streets after many aspirants including sitting MLAs and Ministers were denied tickets by the Chief Minister even as senior leaders like Sonali Guha and Jatu Lahiri openly talked about joining the BJP.
Guha a former Deputy Speaker and four-time MLA from Satgachia seat --- once the bastion of late Chief Minister Jyoti Basu --- broke down saying she had “not expected this kind of treatment from Mamata Didi with whom I have spent decades fighting the Left Front.”
She said that she would join the saffron outfit even as BJP vice president Mukul Roy said he had received a call from Guha. “I have received calls seeking entry in the BJP not only from Sonali but many others who have got tickets to contest even and the party will take a decision on this issue.”
Another senior leader and former Howrah MLA Jatu Lahiri said he had already joined the BJP as “I was insulted by my party. I do not want a ticket in the BJP. I will work for that party but I want nobody to insult me,” he said.
Similarly, supporters of TMC strongman and former MLA Arabul Islam continued to protest on the streets blocking traffic at many places even as the rebel leader said he would take a decision soon about the future course of action.