BJP pitches Chandra Bose against Mamata in Bhowanipore

Chandra Kumar Bose of BJP will contest against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Bhowanipore Assembly seat.

State BJP president Dilip Ghosh announced his name on Wednesday. The complete list of the candidates will be announced within a day or two.

Chandra Bose, grand nephew of Netaji had played a leading role in putting pressure on the Centre for publishing the classified files on Netaji. He joined the party in January in presence of the party’s All India president Amit Shah at Dumurjala stadium in Howrah. Born in a family of politicians his grandfather was Sarat Chandra Bose. His uncle Subrata Basu was an MLA from Forward Bloc in the state Assembly. His aunt Krishna Basu was a Trinamool Congress MP while his cousin Sugata Basu is a sitting Trinamool MP. It may be recalled that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had urged the Centre to publish the classified files and she had published the files kept with the IB department in the state. State BJP leaders said that Bhowanipore was the party’s stronghold and it had decided to field a candidate outside the arena of politics. That is why a newcomer to the party was given the ticket.  The belief of party leaders that Bhowanipore is a party stronghold is because of the fact that party candidate had got 200 votes more than the TMC candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha seat from Bhowanipore segment. But Modi was present in 2014 election.  Bhowanipore was a part of the former Chowringhee constituency which was a Congress stronghold. But the voters switched their allegiance after TMC was set up. Bhowanipore constituency was set up following de limitation in 2011.  In 2015, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) election, TMC got all the seats except ward 70 from where a BJP councillor was elected. The BJP has no base in the area. As it is a prestige fight for the Chief Minister, three heavy weights of the party, Subrata Bakshi, party’s president and MP from South Kolkata, Sovan Chatterjee and Firhad Hakim are looking after the constituency. Mamata Banerjee had asked them to form a team to conduct meetings and campaigns.