BJP sets tone for ‘Khela Hobe’ 2.0, announces 20 faces in first Lok Sabha poll list for Mamata bastion Bengal

BJP Lok Sabha candidates list: In 2019, the BJP had bagged 18 out of 42 seats in West Bengal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday announced 20 out of 42 candidates for the Lok Sabha election in Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal, a state where it registered its best ever electoral performances at national and state level recently. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration and foundation stone-laying of various projects at Arambagh in Hooghly, West Bengal on Friday.(ANI)

The candidates for the eastern state were announced in wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mega development push in the Trinamool Congress bastion. The saffron party, aiming to surpass its 2019 tally of 18 seats, has fielded its state president Sukanta Majumdar along with two Union ministers Nisith Pramanik and Shantanu Thakur for the general elections.

“In the 20 seats that have been announced, there are leaders from all levels of society. All BJP workers will contest the elections together and will gift more seats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from here (West Bengal) than before,” Majumdar, who is contesting from Balurghat once again, told ANI. 

Union minister Nisith Pramanik, currently a minister of state for home, youth affairs and sports, is contesting from Cooch Behar. The 38-year-old leader from North Bengal, Pramanik jumped ship from the TMC to the BJP in 2019 and defeated his former party's candidate Paresh Adhikary by over 54,000 votes. 

Another Union minister in poll fray is Shantanu Thakur, a prominent leader from Matua community. A vocal supporter of the Citizenship Amendment Act, the BJP candidate from Bongaon is currently the Union minister of state for the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways.

Once a Left bastion for 34 years before Mamata Banerjee came to power, Bengal has been a state where the BJP has invested in, especially since 2014. Last April, Union home minister Amit Shah at a rally in Birbhum had set a target of winning 35 seats in the state. 

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won two seats when Modi was voted to power for the first time. Five years later, the saffron party bagged 18 seats. The BJP registered its best electoral performance in the 2021 assembly elections, winning 77 seats. 

The BJP has left no stone unturned to corner Mamata Banerjee over several issues, the latest being the episode in Sandeshkhali village. Prime Minister Modi hit out at the Bengal CM over Sheikh Shahjahan, the TMC leader accused of sexual assault, who was finally arrested ahead of his visit to the state. 

“The country is seeing what Trinamool Congress has done with the sisters of Sandeshkhali. The whole country is angry. The soul of Raja Ram Mohan Roy must have been pained by what happened in Sandeshkhali...the party was protecting the TMC leader and the police had to arrest him yesterday after the BJP leaders exerted pressure on the government,” the prime minister said in Hooghly on Friday.