Indicating all roads for seat sharing with Congress are blocked, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday announced names of Trinamool Congress candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. By announcing party candidates for all seats, she indicated that her party will go solo in the general elections in the state, ditching Congress which is a part of the I.N.D.I.A bloc.
She make this announcement launching her party’s Lok Sabha poll campaign with the mega rally christened ‘Jana Garjan Sabha’. Big names in the list include cricketer Yusuf Pathan and TMC MP Mahua Moitra. Soon after joining TMC on Sunday, he was declared as party candidate from Baharampur constituency, which is the sitting seat of Congress state chief and party’s floar leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Both Congress and TMC are allies in the INDIA bloc. Congress is yet to reveal if Chowdhury will re-contest from the same seat where he had won the previous five times. Chowdhury is known as a bitter critic of Mamata for a long time and he is said to be the main hurdle in TMC and Congress reaching understanding for seat-sharing in the state.
Moreover, TMC has renominated Mahua Motira from Krishnanagar seat. Mahua Moitra had won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Krishnanagar constituency in the Nadia district. She will run for re-election from the same seat, after being disqualified from the 17th Lok Sabha in an alleged cash-for-query scam.
Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee is contesting on TMC ticket from Diamond Harbour. Coming to Basirhat, where Sandeshkhali is situated, the party fielded former MP Haji Nurul Islam replacing sitting MP Nusrat Jahan.
Mamata said her party is in talks with Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav for contesting in one seat from Uttar Pradesh. She said TMC will contest elections alone in Bengal, adding that her party will also fight in Assam and Meghalaya.
The Bengal CM said Prime Minister Narendra Modi must cross-check facts with officials before making allegations against Bengal. Addressing a rally in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress supremo said, “We will never allow BJP to bring NRC or open detention camps in Bengal.”
In a veiled attack against ex-Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay who joined the BJP last week, she said, “I respect judiciary but a few judges worked as BJP agents.”
