The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday named Union minister of state Babul Supriyo, two other Lok Sabha members and Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta alongside four actors and several former Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in its list of candidates for the third and fourth phases of the Bengal assembly elections.
The party named 63 candidates; 27 for the third phase and 36 for the fourth phase. The polls will be held on April 6 and 10, respectively. The state has 294 constituencies. The party did not name four candidates for the third phase and eight candidates for the fourth phase.
Supriyo has been fielded from the Tollygunge seat in south Kolkata where the TMC has fielded current incumbent and minster Aroop Biswas.
Dasgupta, a nominated Rajya Sabha member, has been fielded from Tarakeswar against the TMCs Ramendu Sinha Roy.
Senior journalist Rantideb Sengupta, the editor of one of the mouthpieces of the right-wing camp, agreed to contest from the Howrah south constituency after refusing earlier in the day. He contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls unsuccessfully.
Subir Nag, former president of the BJPs Hooghly district unit, said he would like to step out of politics for a while after the BJP central leadership in Delhi named Locket Chatterjee, the MP from Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency, as candidate for the Chinsurah seat against the TMCs Asit Majumdar.
The BJP is a party where people follow the directions that come from the top. We will win all 18 seats in Hooghly district, said Chatterjee.
The announcements were made by BJP national general secretary Arun Singh and Union minister of state Debasree Chaudhuri, MP from Raigunj.
Alongside Supriyo, the MP from Asansol in West Burdwan district, Nisith Pramanik, the Lok Sabha member from Cooch Behar constituency in Cooch Behar district, has also been named as a candidate.
The BJP fielded four actors, some of who joined the party less than a month ago.
Yash Dasgupta, a young and popular star, who joined the BJP on February 18 has been fielded from Chanditala against the TMCs two-time MLA Swati Khandokar. Actor Tanusree Chakraborty, who joined the BJP a week ago, has been fielded along with actors Anjana Basu and Payel Sarkar.
Former minster Rajib Banerjee has been fielded from the Domjur seat in Howrah district from where he had won twice. Prabir Ghosal, the TMC MLA from Hooghlys Uttarpara seat, who joined the BJP along with Banerjee, has been fielded from the same seat.
TMCs Lok Sabha MP Saugata Roy said, The lists expose the bankruptcy of the BJP. A party fields a Rajya Sabha member and three Lok Sabha members in state elections only when it cannot find candidates.
Fielding as many as four sitting MPs in an assembly poll is unprecedented in Bengal and surprising at the same time. This was probably done to address the discontent among old-timers of the BJP whose differences with leaders who defected from the TMC in recent months is well known, said poll analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay.
BJP leaders protest across Bengal
The rift between old-timers and newcomers in West Bengal BJP came out in the open as several aspirants resigned after they were denied tickets for the assembly elections, while protests were held across the state.
BJP leader and TMC turncoat Sovan Chattopadhyay along with Baisakhi Bandopadhyay quit the party after both of them were denied tickets. In his resignation letter to the partys state president Dilip Ghosh, Chattopadhyay accused the BJP of humiliating him.
Several district level leaders also resigned from the party after failing to get tickets.
