BJP pits Suvendu against Mamata for Bengal polls

The BJP on Saturday released its first list of 57 candidates for the Bengal Assembly polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from his home turf of Nandigram, from where Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced her candidature.

Former Indian cricketer Ashoke Dinda and ex-IPS officer Bharati Ghosh are among the BJP candidates, party general secretary Arun Singh said at a press conference, adding that 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.

"Jungle raaj" prevails in the state, and voters have made up their mind to oust the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and elect the BJP to power, Singh claimed.

The BJP on Friday shied away from announcing its candidates for either of the first two phases of the Bengal Assembly elections.

The delay in publishing the list, a section of workers said, was to avoid any possible “sabotage” of Narendra Modi’s rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds in Calcutta on Sunday by those denied the BJP nomination.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address a rally in Calcutta’s Brigade Parade ground on Sunday, his first after the announcement of the poll dates.

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.

Source: The Telegraph, India