West Bengal elections: Mamata Banerjee to contest from Nandigram

Throwing open a fresh challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday announced that she will be contesting the upcoming Assembly elections in the state from Nandigram constituency — a seat that is currently held by heavyweight Suvendhu Adhikari who recently quit the Trinamool Congress and joined the BJP.

Mamata was addressing a rally in Nandigram where she declared that apart from Nandigram, she will also contest from Bhabanipur constituency. “I have always started my campaign for the assembly polls from Nandigram. It is a lucky place for me. So this time I feel that I should contest the assembly polls from here. I request our state party president Subrata Bakshi to approve my name from this seat," Banerjee said, addressing a rally there.

The Chief Minister while speaking at the rally in Nandigram also declared that the TMC would return to power in the state and also added that she was not worried about the leaders of the party who had defected to the BJP.

It is expected that the battle of the Nandigram constituency in the upcoming elections would a defining one as the CM would be taking on Mr Adhikari, who was once her trusted lieutenant and is now one of the key leaders of the BJP in the state.

Suvendu Adhikari, who had recently defected to the BJP from the TMC, had registered an emphatic win in the Nandigram constituency in the 2011 state assembly elections as a candidate from the TMC. He is also considered to be a very influential leader in the area. He had also risen to prominence in the party by organizing the agitation against land acquisition in Nandigram.

The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)  has been campaigning with the aim of winning  200 of 294 seats in the assembly elections of this state which is considered as a traditional political outlier in the country and also as an opposition stronghold. On the other hand, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has been beset by a number of defections of party leaders, which are perceived to have given the BJP a shot in the arm.