Kolkata: For the first time in its history, Trinamul Congress publicly announced the names of its 42 candidates, full of surprises, for the Lok Sabha Election in West Bengal with huge fanfare from the historic Brigade Parade Ground in the city, turning it's mega rally, Jana Garjan Sabha, into a Sunday extravaganza.
TMC national general secretary and party MP Abhishek Banerjee spelt out the candidates’ names after party supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee made it clear while addressing the rally that her party would alone contest the 42 seats of the state and declared of fielding candidates in Assam, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh also.
The 42 TMC candidates, led by Ms Banerjee, later walked on a 320-ft-long ramp in a parade for their introduction before an impressive crowd at the grand venue. They include 26 new and famous faces from sports, cinema, literature, healthcare and bureaucracy and 10 TMC MLAs including two ministers, Biplab Mitra (Balurghat) and Partha Bhoumik (Barrackpore) and party Rajya Sabha MP Prakash Chik Baraik (Alipurduar) also.
One of them is former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, fielded at Berhampore, a Congress stronghold represented by Lok Sabha leader of the party Adhir Ranjan Choudhury since 1999. He later posted on X-handle, “I'm eternally grateful to Smt. @MamataOfficial for welcoming me into the TMC family and trusting me with the responsibility to become people's voice in the Parliament. As representatives of the people, it is our duty to uplift the poor and deprived, and that is what I hope to achieve.”
Another former cricketer, Kirti Azad, will contest at Bardhaman-Durgapur seat which went to the BJP last time. Others are Tollywood actor Rachna Banerjee (Hooghly) who hosts popular show ‘Didi No 1’ that Ms Banerjee recently attended, Padmashree awardee and Santhali playwright Kalipada Soren (Jhargram), Dr Sharmila Sarkar (Bardhaman Purba), Prasun Banerjee (Malda Uttar), an IPS officer who resigned as IG(Raiganj Range) on Saturday,
At Bishnupur in Bankura, the ruling party fielded Sujata Mondal against her ex-husband and BJP MP Saumitra Khan. It also dropped eight MPs this time out of 22 it won in 2019 and bagged two more later. At Basirhat, which covers Sandeshkhali, former MP Haji Nurul Islam will contest the polls in place of Tollywood actor Nusrat Jahan. At Jadavpur, TMC gave ticket to actor-turned politician Saayoni Ghosh. At Jadavpur, TMC gave ticket to actor-turned politician Saayoni Ghosh replacing actor Mimi Chakraborty who wanted to resign as MP last month.
The remaining 16 have been kept intact. They are Sougata Roy (Dum Dum), Sudip Bandopadhyay (North Kolkata), Mala Roy (South Kolkata), Abhishek Banerjee (Diamond Harbour), Pratima Mondal (Joynagar), Prasun Banerjee (Howrah), Sajda Ahmed (Uluberia), Kalyan Banerjee (Serampore), Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar (Barasat), Deepak Adhikari aka Dev (Ghatal), Shatabdi Roy (Birbhum), Asit Mal (Bolpur) Mahua Moitra (Krishnanagar), Abu Taher Khan (Murshidabad), Khalilur Rahaman (Jangipur) and Shatrughan Sinha (Asansol).
Interestingly, the TMC also reduced the number of its female candidates from 17 in 2019 to 12 this time.
