BJP publishes 2nd list for Bengal, with surprises
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s second list of candidates from Bengal for the Lok Sabha elections (the fifth, overall), published on March 24, had quite a few surprises.
Among the 19 candidates is Rekha Patra, a newcomer to the field of politics. She became famous for being one of the first women to raise her voice against alleged sexual assaults by three expelled Trinamool Congress leaders from Sandeshkhali—Sheikh Shahjahan, Shibu Hazra and Uttam Sardar, all of whom are now in jail. She has been fielded from Basirhat, the parliamentary constituency in which Sandeshkhali falls.
Another debutant is Amrita Roy, a daughter-in-law of the royal family of Krishnanagar, who has been nominated for the Krishnanagar seat and will take on Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra, the sitting MP.
Also making his electoral debut is the recently-resigned Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, known for the series of judgments on the alleged teacher recruitment and caste certificate scams, which went against the ruling Trinamool Congress government. He is the saffron party’s Lok Sabha candidate from Tamluk.
There were other surprises, too. The sitting MP from Medinipur, Dilip Ghosh was nominated from Bardhaman Durgapur, despite the former being a constituency he knows very well.
Similarly, Debasree Chowdhury was taken from Raiganj (where she is the sitting MP) to Kolkata South, a stronghold of the Trinamool and a constituency she is not much acquainted with. According to sources, though, she had requested the party not to re-nominate her from Raiganj.
Jayanta Ray was re-nominated in Jalpaiguri while former Trinamool MLA Tapas Ray, who recently joined the BJP, got the ticket for the Kolkata North constituency. He will take on his political arch-rival, Sudip Bandyopadhyay of Trinamool Congress, the long-time MP from the constituency. Tapas Roy’s nomination was expected, according to some political experts.
The BJP has retained Raju Bista from Darjeeling despite all the rumours going around for almost the last one year about the former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla getting to represent the seat.
