The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday announced the candidates for the last four phases of the West Bengal assembly election. The most bizarre thing in the candidate list is that two nominees are not part of BJP.
The saffron party nominated late veteran Congress leader of the state Somen Mitra’s wife Shikha Mitra from Chowringhee of central Kolkata and outgoing Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA from Kashipur-Belgachhia constituency of north Kolkata, Mala Saha’s husband Tarun Saha. Shah was denied ticket by the TMC for the upcoming election and instead nominated deputy mayor of Kolkata, Atin Ghosh.
Through a video message, Mitra said, “I am not in BJP. I never was. It’s not possible for me to contest on a BJP ticket.”
Expressing shock over hearing the news of the nomination, Tarun Saha told a reporter present there, “I was busy with the campaign of our candidate and suddenly, I got to know that BJP named me as their candidate. I have not joined the BJP. They named me as a candidate without even consulting me.” Saha is a popular face of north Kolkata and a veteran TMC councillor in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
The most astounding part is none of these two alleged that they were never even consulted before the saffron party announced their candidature.
Meanwhile, in an unprecedented move, the BJP changed Ashok Lahiri, as the candidate in Alipurduar, amid a wave of protests in North Bengal by the party workers, and replaced him with Suman Kanjilal.
Protests over BJP’s ticket distribution
The BJP announced the candidates for West Bengal in three parts. After the announcement of the second list, large-scale protests broke out in various places across the state as the party fielded turncoats as BJP candidates.
Their anger was clearly visible when senior BJP leaders like national vice-president Mukul Roy, MP from Barrackpore Arjun Singh and national general secretary Shiv Prakash were heckled by the protesters while they were entering the party election office at Hastings in South Kolkata.
The rift between old-timers and newcomers in the West Bengal BJP was brewing for months as the party inducted scores of leaders from the TMC, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Congress almost daily in the state.
After the candidate lists were announced, there was an outburst of anger and frustration by workers. Several aspirants voiced their anguish against the party and resigned after they were denied tickets.
Former TMC veteran and Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who joined the BJP after the 2019 Lok Sabha election along with his friend Baisakhi Bandhopadhyay, quit the party after he was not given a ticket from his desired constituency.
Similar protests broke out in Panchla, Udaynarayanpur and Raidighi as the BJP nominated two TMC turncoats – Mohit Ghati and Santanu Bapuni – from Panchla and Raidighi constituencies and former Congress leader Sumit Ranjan Karar from Udaynarayanpur.
BJP is also struggling to find suitable candidates for the high stakes battle in Bengal. Hence, the party nominated Union minister Babul Supriyo and four sitting MPs – Locket Chatterjee, Nisith Pramanik, Jagannath Sarkar and Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta (who resigned from the Upper House on Tuesday) – to contest the state election.
Interestingly, BJP fielded once Mamata Banerjee’s right-hand-man, now national vice-president of BJP Mukul Roy from Krishnanagar Uttar constituency. Roy was an unusual pick considering his experience electoral career. Sixty-six-year-old Roy contested the election only once in 2001 from Jagatdal assembly constituency and was defeated by over 50,000 votes.
Veteran Bengal unit leader Rahul Sinha will contest from Habra of North 24 Parganas district. Mukul Roy’s son, Subhranshu Roy, who had joined the BJP in 2019, will be contesting from Bijpur constituency in North 24 Parganas.
This time also BJP fielded many film personalities such as Rudranil Ghosh Srabanti Chatterjee, Parno Mitra, and fashion designer Agnimitra Paul from the Bhowanipore, Behala West, Baranagar and Asansol South constituencies, respectively.
Several turncoats such as Jitendra Tiwari, Biswajit Kundu, Arindam Bhattacharya, Baishali Dalmiya, Shilbhadra Dutta, Sunil Singh, Sabyasachi Dutta have also been fielded by the BJP.