Assembly bypolls: Sayantika Banerjee to contest from Baranagar seat

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday announced the names of its party candidates for two Assembly seats in Bengal which are headed for by-elections.

The party announced that actress-turned-politician Sayantika Banerjee will contest from the Baranagar seat which had fallen vacant after the sitting TMC MLA Tapas Roy resigned from his post. The by-election to this seat is scheduled to be held on June 1.

Sayantika had joined TMC in 2021 and was given a ticket from Bankura Assembly constituency during the state elections that year.

Although she was defeated by the BJP candidate, she kept herself occupied with the party’s organisational work. Recently, after TMC had announced the candidates for Lok Sabha elections, she had expressed her disappointment in the media for not getting a ticket from the Bankura Lok Sabha seat. Following the announcement of her name for the Baranagar seat by-elections, she said that her hard work for all these years has paid off.

Meanwhile, the party fielded Reyat Hossain Sarkar from the Bhagwangola seat. Sarkar is the Trinamool block president of Bhagwangola-I Block and had joined the Zilla Parishad after winning in the 2023 Panchayat elections.

Announcement by TMC comes after the BJP recently announced the names of its party candidates for these two seats. KMC councillor Sajal Ghosh was fielded for the Baranagar seat by the BJP. He will be fighting Trinamool’s Sayantika for this seat.

In the Bhagawangola seat in Murshidabad, the party has fielded a local BJP worker Bhaskar Sarkar. The seat fell vacant after the TMC MLA Idris Ali passed away last month. The seat is scheduled to go for by-elections on May 7. Bhaskar Sarkar will be fighting TMC’s Reyat Hossain Sarkar for the seat.