West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021: The BJP’s central election committee on Saturday released the first list of candidates for the West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021. BJP General Secretary Arun Singh released the candidate list and said that BJP’s central election committee has approved the names of candidates on 57 seats for West Bengal Assembly elections. Notably, the list has been released for phase 1 and 2 of the assembly polls.
Releasing the list of candidates, BJP leader Arun Singh said Suvendu Adhikari will contest the election from the Nandigram seat. Interestingly, the former TMC heavyweight, who has recently joined BJP, will face chief minister Mamata Banerjee who has already moved her constituency from Bhawanipore to Nandigram.
On the other hand, Mamata Banerjee, on Friday, released the list of TMC candidates for the upcoming assembly polls for 291 seats with emphasis on youths, minority, women and backward communities.
According to the list, former Indian cricketer Ashoke Dinda and ex-IPS officer Bharati Ghosh are among the BJP candidates. The BJP said it has conceded one seat to ally AJSU.
With this the party has announced candidates for all but three of the 60 seats which will go to polls in the first two of the eight-phase elections to be held between March 27 and April 29.
Nandigram, the site of protests against the Left government which had ignited a popular upsurge and catapulted the TMC to power in 2011, is set for one of the keenest electoral battles in the state with Banerjee taking on her former protegee and now BJP leader Adhikari.
Adhikari had won from the seat in 2016 and resigned recently before crossing over to the saffron party. Banerjee announced her candidature from the seat while leaving her traditional constituency of Bhowanipore in Kolkata.