Congress releases list of 284 candidates; Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary entered the fray from Baharampur. india news
New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday released its first list of 284 candidates for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, signaling its decision to contest alone in the state. The party said it will contest all 294 seats and will not leave any seat vacant.Among the prominent candidates, former state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has been fielded from Baharampur, while former TMC MP Mausam Noor, who recently joined the Congress, will contest from Maltipur. Other names in the list include Madhap Rai (Darjeeling), Abdul Hannan (Sujapur), Susmita Biswas (Dum Dum), Gautam Bhattacharya (Diamond Harbour), Souvik Mukherjee (Asansol South) and Prasenjit Puitandi (Asansol North).
The announcement came a day after detailed deliberations on candidate selection by the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC). Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and senior leaders from West Bengal attended the meeting.AICC in-charge of West Bengal Ghulam Ahmed Mir was also present along with CEC members Ambika Soni, Madhusudan Mistry, Salman Khurshid, TS Singhdev, KJ George, PL Punia and Ami Yaznik.Mir said that Congress has received a large number of applications for the elections. “We will contest all 294 assembly seats in West Bengal, no seat will remain vacant. This was the wish of our workers and activists in the state from the very beginning. We have received 2,500 applications for these 294 seats,” he said.West Bengal Assembly elections will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29, with the counting of votes taking place on May 4.