BJP accepts challenge: Adhikari takes on Didi WEEKS BEFORE BENGAL POLLS, TMC’S DINESH TRIVEDI JOINS BJP
The TMC defector will contest against Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram as battle for Bengal heats up
KOLKATA: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sent out a strong signal of confidence ahead of the eight-phase West Bengal assembly election, declaring on Saturday that former TMC leader Suvendhu Adhikari will go headto-head with chief minister Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram as the party announced its first list of 57 candidates for the polls.
Nandigram will now host the state’s most closely watched election as the two-time chief minister fights her protegeturned-defector Adhikari, who left the TMC in December last year, while the BJP tries to wrest control of a state where until recently it had little traction.
On Friday, the chief minister had announced she was dropping her current constituency of Bhawanipore in Kolkata, to contest only from Nandigram, the seat once represented by Adhikari. Banerjee’s seat will be contested by power minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.
Releasing the first list of candidates for the Bengal polls with 57 contenders, BJP general secretary Arun Singh named former Indian cricketer Ashoke Dinda and EX-IPS officer Bharati Ghosh, adding that the party has conceded one seat to ally All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU).
With this, the party has announced candidates for all but three of the 60 seats that will go to polls in the first two of the eight-phase elections to be held between March 27 and April 29.
“Jungle raj prevails in the state, and voters have made up their mind to oust the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and elect the BJP to power, Singh said, addressing a press conference.
“...People are seeking a change. They want to break free from the tyranny of the current government,” Singh added.
The BJP’S announcement also comes a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address his first election rally in Kolkata’s Brigade Parade ground on Sunday.
The contest in Nandigram will also be a symbolic battle for both
NEW DELHI: Former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, who announced his resignation from West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the Rajya Sabha on February 12, joined the BJP on Saturday weeks before the elections in the state.
BJP chief JP Nadda welcomed Trivedi into the party in the presence of Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Piyush Goyal. Nadda said Trivedi paid a price for his principles whether he was the railway minister or as a party member. “For principles, he quit the Rajya Sabha seat. He opted for idealism instead of opportunism,” Nadda said.
Leaders from other parties joining the BJP also show how people see it as a forum for serving the nation, Nadda said. “He met me about two months ago, and said he wanted to serve the party,” he said. He called Trivedi a “sensitive and idealistic person. In the TMC, corruption, opportunism, and killing the democracy are enshrined; so, he quit and joined the BJP.”
Trivedi said this was a “golden moment” he had waited for.