BJP releases list of candidates for 3rd, 4th phase: Babul Supriyo, Locket Chatterjee to contest

Union minister Babul Supriyo will contest the elections from Tollygunge constituency and Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee will fight the polls from Chuchura

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday announced a list of 63 candidates for the third and fourth phase of the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal. In the current list, Union minister Babul Supriyo, Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta and BJP MPs Locket Chatterjee and Nishith Pramanik have been named as candidates for the elections.

Union minister Babul Supriyo has been named as a candidate for the upcoming polls. (ANI File Photo)

Union minister Babul Supriyo will contest the elections from Tollygunge constituency. Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta will fight the polls from Tarakeswar. Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee will fight the polls from Chuchura while parliamentarian Nishith Pramanik will contest the polls from Dinhata.

The BJP has also given tickets to former chief economic adviser to Centre Ashok Lahiri from Alipurduar constituency and oncologist Dr Indranil Khan from Kasba. Former minister Rajib Banerjee who left the Trinamool Congress (TMC) earlier this year will fight the elections from Domjur. Former Trinamool Congress MLA from Singur Rabindranath Bhattacharya who had joined the BJP after defecting from the Trinamool Congress last week will contest from Singur.

Actors Yash Dasgupta, Tanusree Chakraborty, Payal Sarkar and Anjana Basu, who recently joined the BJP, have been named in the recent list of candidates. Yash Dasgupta will contest the elections from Chanditala assembly constituency. Tanusree Chakaraborty and Payal Sarkar will contest from Shyampur and Behala Purba constituencies respectively. Actor Anjana Basu will fight the polls from Sonarpur Dakshin constituency.

The BJP in its list for the 3rd and 4th phase of elections gave tickets to seven women candidates. The party had earlier released names of 57 candidates for the first and second phase last week. In its previous list, the party had fielded former TMC MLA Suvendu Adhikari against West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP hopes to win the assembly elections in the state buoyed by its performance in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. Over the past few months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah visited the state several times appealing to the citizens to vote for the BJP and accusing the TMC of taking the state behind in terms of development and creating instability in the law and order situation.

Bengal heads to polls from March 27 and the elections will be held in eight phases. The other rounds will be held on - April 1, April 6, April 10, April 17, April 22, April 26 and April 29. The votes will be counted on May 2.