Didi keeps only 1 seat: Adhikari’s stronghold
No 2nd constituency for Trinamool chief as party announces 291 candidates
KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee on Friday sent out a strong signal of her confidence ahead of the eight-phase West Bengal assembly elections that begin on March 27 by announcing candidates for 291 of the 294 assembly seats on offer, dropping many incumbents, including ministers, and deciding to contest only from Nandigram, a constituency once represented by her protegeturned-bete-noire Suvendhu Adhikari, who recently defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP said it will announce its candidate list after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses his first election rally in Kolkata on Sunday.
Banerjee left three seats in the Darjeeling hills for the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) whose two factions support her.
At least 26 sitting legislators, including five ministers, do not find mention in the TMC list. The party has 211 seats in the outgoing assembly but is expected to face a tough fight in the coming elections from the BJP, which has made significant inroads in the state.
And as previously announced, Banerjee said she would contest Nandigram, and only that constituency, eschewing the strategy adopted by some chief ministers of contesting from two constituencies. “When I make a promise, I keep it. I will fight for Nandigram,” Banerjee said at a crowded press conference at her home in south Kolkata’s Kalighat on Friday. She said her current seat, Bhawanipore, will be contested by power minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.
“Banerjee appeared confident when she announced the list of candidates but dropping so many incumbents will surely lead to some discontent that the BJP will try to utilise. The TMC has to keep a watch on infighting in the coming days,” said Kolkata-based political science professor and election analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay.
Adhikari’s younger brother Soumendu defected to the BJP last year while their elder brother Dibyendu and father Sisir, both of whom are TMC Lok Sabha members from the same district, are keeping their distance from the ruling party.
All eyes will be on Nandigram, which goes to polls on April 1, said analysts, since the BJP may field Adhikari again and cleric Abbasuddin Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front (ISF), a partner of the Left-Congress coalition, also wants to contest the seat. Siddiqui wants to field his elder brother Nausad, the ISF chairman, from the high-profile constituency, while the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are divided on this issue. Suvnedu Adhikari addressed a rally at Panskura in East Midnapore shortly after the TMC’s list was released.
“The moment I saw the list I knew we have won all seats in East Midnapore. Mamata Banerjee has announced that she will contest from Nandigram but people are asking for a bhoomi putra (son of the soil). Why is she fleeing from Bhawanipore? It is because she knows she will lose there,” Adhikari told the crowd.