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Congress releases list of 284 candidates, names Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from Baharampur
The list released by Congress general secretary K C Venugopal in Delhi named 39 women, 68 Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and 16 Scheduled Tribe (ST) nominees
The Congress on Sunday announced its list of 284 candidates for the two-phase polls to the 294-member West Bengal assembly, fielding former state president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former Lok Sabha member Mausam Benazir Noor.
The list released by All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K C Venugopal in Delhi named 39 women, 68 Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and 16 Scheduled Tribe (ST) nominees.
The Congress and the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), contested the 2021 assembly polls as allies, but neither party won a single seat. In February, Congress general secretary in charge of Bengal, Ghulam Ahmed, announced that the Congress would contest all 294 assembly seats on its own.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who won Murshidabad district’s Berhampore Lok Sabha seat five times since 1999, was defeated in the 2024 election by former Indian cricketer Yusuf Pathan fielded by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.
Chowdhury resigned as state president after the debacle. He has been fielded from Berhampore assembly segment, which falls under his old Lok Sabha seat.
"I am an old soldier of the Congress. If the party wants me to contest, I have to," said Chowdhury, who last fought an assembly election in the mid-1990s.
Mausam Benazir Noor, who won the Malda North Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket in 2009 and 2014, will contest from Malatipur in Malda district. She joined the TMC in 2019 but lost the seat to Bharatiya Janata Party’s Khagen Murmu.
Noor, who was made a Rajya Sabha member by TMC, returned to the Congress in January this year and resigned from the Parliament.
Also on the list is Rohan Mitra, son of late Congress leader Somen Mitra, one of the longest-serving state presidents, who will contest from Ballygunge in south Kolkata.
