The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced its second list of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal. The list featured the names of 111 candidates, including former Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nisith Pramanik, who has fielded from the Mathabhanga assembly constituency.
40-year-old Pramanik represented the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency till 2024 but had lost the general elections that year.
The second list features the names of around 19 women, including actor-turned-politician Roopa Ganguly and Rekha Patra. While Ganguly will contest from the Sonarpur Dakshin assembly seat, Patra will fight from Hingalganj. It must be noted that Patra was saffron party's candidate from Basirhat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Additionally, the party has named Kaushik Roy as its candidate from Maynaguri, Noman Rai from Darjeeling, Ashim Kumar Biswas from Ranaghat Dakshin, Subrata Thakur from Gaighata, and Arjun Singh from Noapara.
Dibyendu Adhikari, the brother of Suvendu Adhikari (who is contesting from two seats: Bhabanipur and Nandigram), has also been fielded by the BJP from the Egra assembly constituency. Meanwhile, the party has fielded Papiya Dey Adhikari, Priyanka Tibrewal, Tapas Roy and Sudip Kumar Mukherjee from the Tollygunge, Entally, Maniktala and Purulia assembly constituencies, respectively.
The BJP has also made a couple of changes to its first list. From the Bishnupur seat, the party has now fielded Viswajit Khan. Meanwhile, Biswajit Mahato will contest from Joypur.
With this, the saffron party has named 255 candidates for the West Bengal polls for which the polling will be held in two phases: April 23 and April 29. The counting of votes, on the other hand, will be conducted on May 4, along with those in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and the union territory (UT) of Puducherry.
In its previous list, which was announced in March 16, the party had announced 144 candidates. That list featured Suvendu Adhikar, who will contest from two seats: Bhabanipur and Nandigram. In Bhabanipur, he will challenge incumbent Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee. Adhikar had also contested against Banerjee from Nandigram in the 2021 polls, narrowly defeating her. Following that, Banerjee contest a by-poll from the Babanipur seat.
Besides, the party had also fielded Dilip Ghosh from the Kharagpur Sadar seat in the first list. Swapan Dasgupta, a former Rajya Sabha MP, was also named as party's candidate from the Rashbehari constituency.
ALSO READ - West Bengal Polls: BJP releases first list of 144 candidates, fields Suvendu Adhikari against Mamata
