The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday released a list of 13 candidates for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly election.
The prominent faces that feature in this list include Subha Pradhan and Neeraj Tamang Zimba.
The party continued with its strategy of fielding personalities from different walks of life as it nominated former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen (retd) Subrata Saha from the Rashbehari seat in South Kolkata.
Former Chief Economic Advisor Ashok Lahiri, who was earlier pulled out from the Alipurduar seat in north Bengal after local party workers held a protest against his candidature, will now contest from Balurghat as a BJP candidate. Lahiri was replaced with local leader Suman Kanjilal from the Alipurduar seat last week.
The saffron party also fielded new candidates from Chowranghee and Kashipur-Belgachia seats, after its earlier nominees had refused their tickets.
Nominations were given to Sikha Mitra, wife of former state Congress president Somen Mitra, from Chowranghee and Tarun Saha, husband of TMC MLA Mala Saha, from Kashipur- Belgachia.
The upcoming assembly election in West Bengal is going to see a tough fight between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the same has been reflected in their party manifestos.
Leaving no areas to attract the attention of the Bengali people, BJP in their manifesto has given a large space to women, announcing that if the BJP comes to power, 33 per cent job reservation will be provided to the women, along with free travelling for them in public transport. It also includes free education from Kindergarten (KG) to Post-Graduation (PG).
The BJP will implement the Ayushman Bharat Scheme and the Pradhan Mantri Kishan Nidhi Scheme which the Mamata Banerjee government has denied implementing in the state. It has also promised the provision of salt at Rs 3 per kg and sugar at Rs 5 per kg.
The BJP has also promised to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the very first year of its Cabinet and has said that would make strong efforts to strengthen border fencing to stop infiltrators, while Rs 10,000 every year for the refugees family for five years will be ensured.
Elections to the 294-member state assembly will be held in eight phases from March 27 to April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.
Here is the list of 13 candidates announced by the BJP:
