BJP’s Bengal candidates: state party president Dilip Ghosh, ex-IPS officer Bharati Ghosh, plus four defectors

The first list of candidates released by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday significantly has names of four defectors in West Bengal. The party’s state president Dilip Ghosh and former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh are some of the other contestants from Bengal.

The four defectors in the list are Arjun Singh, Soumitra Kha, Anupam Hazra (all three from the ruling Trinamool Congress) and Khagen Murmu (who joined from the CPIM).

As expected, Arjun Singh has been fielded from the Barrackpore constituency. He had quit the Trinamool Congress and joined the BJP a day after the ruling party in West Bengal announced its candidates’ list, and Singh’s name wasn’t there. There were talks that Singh – a Trinamool Congress lawmaker from Bhatpara – wanted to be the candidate from Barrackpore this time. However, the party fielded its winning candidate of 2014, Dinesh Trivedi from the seat.

Soumitra Kha and Anupam Hazra are two other defectors from the Trinamool Congress who joined the BJP. Hazra has been fielded from Jadavpur, and Kha from the Bishnupur seat. Murmu is the candidate from Malda Uttar.

The BJP state president, Dilip Ghosh, is himself contesting from the Midnapore seat. Ghosh is currently a lawmaker from the same area. Former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh has been fielded from the Ghatal constituency. She will take on current parliamentarian, movie star Dev, who had won the seat in 2014. Ghosh, once close to the Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, joined the BJP recently.

Babul Supriyo, BJP’s winning candidate from Asansol, will contest from the same seat this time. Candidate for BJP’s other winning Lok Sabha seat, Darjeeling, was not announced on Thursday however. This is rather surprising given that Darjeeling will vote in the second phase, on April 18. There are talks that S.S. Ahluwalia, the current parliamentarian from the seat, may be replaced, though nothing has yet been finalised.

BJP general secretary from Bengal, Sayantan Basu has been fielded from Basirhat, Samik Bhattacharya is the candidate from Dum Dum, Locket Chatterjee is the candidate from Dum Dum, Chandra Kumar Bose and Rahul Sinha are contesting from Kolkata South and Kolkata North seats respectively.