THE BJP on Sunday announced its star-studded list of candidates, which included a Union Minister and several MPs, for the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam. The party released names of 112 candidates for Kerala, where it will be contesting in 115 out of 140 Assembly seats, 17 names for Assam and 63 candidates for the third and fourth phase of elections in West Bengal.

 

In West Bengal, the BJP has fielded former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government Ashok Lahiri from the Alipurduar seat, Union Minister Babul Supriyo from Tollygunge, and Swapan Dasgupta from the Tarakeshwar Assembly segment. Actor-turned-politician and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee has been fielded from Chunchura and another MP Nishit Parmanik from Dinhata. Also, a number of film personalities have been nominated as candidates in the high-stakes battle for West Bengal. Rajib Banerjee will contest from Domjur Assembly seat. Former TMC MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya, who joined BJP last week, will contest from Singur. Actor Yash Das Gupta will contest from Chanditala Assembly seat, Tanusree Chakraborty from Shyampur, Payal Sarkar from Behala Purba and Anjana Basu from Sonarpur Dakshin. Elections to 294-member State Assembly will be held in eight phases starting from March 27 with the final round of voting taking place on April 29.

 

The counting of votes will take place on May 2. A similar trend was visible in Kerala, where the BJP fielded ‘metroman’ E Sreedharan from Palakkad and former Union Minister K J Alphons from the Kanjirappally Assembly seat. Former State President Kummanam Rajasekharan is contesting from Nemom. Actor Suresh Gopi is contesting from Thrissur. Former Vice-Chancellor of Calicut University Abdul Salam is fielded in Tirur. Former DGP Jacob Thomas will contest from Irinjalakuda. For Tamil Nadu, it announced actor-turned-politician Khushbu Sundar as its candidate from the Thousand Lights Assembly seat. The BJP’s women cell chief Vanathi Srinivasan has been fielded against noted filmstar Kamal Haasan from Coimbatore South seat.

 

State President L Murugan will contest from Dharapuram. Senior leader H Raja will contest from Karaikudi. In Assam, Hasinara Khatun has been fielded from Baghbar and Suman Haripriya from Hajo Assembly constituency. Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters the party General Secretary Arun Singh announced the names of candidate and said in all the poll-bound States environment is in favour of the BJP.