West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday announced names of 42 Trinamool Congress candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Big names in the list include cricketer Yusuf Pathan and TMC MP Mahua Moitra.
Surprisingly, Pathan will contest from Baharampur constituency, which is the sitting seat of Congress state chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Both Congress and TMC are allies in the INDIA bloc. Congress is yet to reveal if Chowdhury will recontest from the same seat where he had won the previous five times.
TMC has renominated Mahua Motira from Krishnanagar seat. Abhishek Banerjee is contesting on TMC ticket from Diamond Harbour. Coming to Basirhat, where Sandeshkhali is situated, the party fielded former MP Haji Nurul Islam replacing sitting MP Nusrat Jahan.
Mamata said her party is in talks with Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav for contesting in one seat from Uttar Pradesh. She said TMC will contest elections alone in Bengal, adding that her party will also fight in Assam and Meghalaya.
The Bengal CM said Prime Minister Narendra Modi must must cross-check facts with officials before making allegations against Bengal.
Addressing a rally in Kolkata, the Trinamool Congress supremo said, "We will never allow BJP to bring NRC or open detention camps in Bengal."
In a veiled attack against ex-Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay who joined the BJP last week, she said, "I respect judiciary but a few judges worked as BJP agents."
Check out the full list of TMC candidates in all 42 seats in West Bengal:
Alipurduar: Prakash Chik Baraik
Asansol: Shatrughan Sinha
Baharampur: Yusuf Pathaan
Balurghat: Biplab Mitra
Bankura: Arup Chakraborty
Bangaon: Biswajit Das
Bardhaman North: Dr. Sharmila Sarkar
Bardhaman-Durgapur: Kirti Azad
Barrackpore: Partha Bhowmik
Barasat: Kakali Ghosh Dastidar
Basirhat: Haji Nurul Islam
Birbhum: Shatabdi Roy
Bishnupur: Sujata Khan
Bolpur: Asit Kumar Mal
Coochbehar: Jagdish Chandra Basuniya
Darjeeling: Gopal Lama
Diamond Harbour: Abhishek Banerjee
Dum Dum: Sougata Roy
Hoogly: Rachana Banerjee
Howrah: Prasun Bandyopadhyay
Jadavpur: Sayoni Ghosh
Jalpaiguri: Nirmal Chandra Roy
Jangipur: Khalilur Rehman
Joynagar: Pratima Mondal
Krishnanagar: Mahua Moitra
Kolkata South: Mala Roy
Kolkata North: Sudip Bandyopadhyay
Malda North: Prasun Banerjee
Malda South: Shahnawaz Ali Raihan
Mathurapur: Bapi Haldar
Medinipur: June Malia
Murshidabad: Abu Teher Khan
Purulia: Shantiram Mahato
Raigunj: Krishna Kalyani
Ranaghat: Mukutmani Adhikari
Srirampore: Kalyan Banerjee
Uluberia: Sajdah Ahmed