Bypolls: TMC announces candidates for 6 Assembly seats; Cong, Left yet to declare
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Sunday announced a list of candidates for the bypolls to six Assembly seats scheduled to take place on November 13.
The party, in its issued communique announced the name of Sangita Roy for the Sitai (SC) seat, Jay Prakash Toppo for Madarihat (ST), Falguni Singhababu for Taldangra, Sujoy Hazra for Midnapore (West Midnapore district), Sk. Rabiul Islam for Haroa, and Sanat Dey for Naihati. The TMC had won five of these seats in the 2021 Assembly polls, except for Madarihat which was held by the BJP.
Party sources said reliance was placed on local-level leaders in choosing candidates.
The bypolls were necessitated due to the resignations of sitting MLAs of the six segments following their victory in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. The announcement by the ruling party of Bengal came a day after the BJP announced the names of its candidates for the same.
For BJP, Deepak Kumar Roy will contest from Sitai while Rahul Lohar will contest from Madarihat. Rupak Mitra has been fielded as a candidate from Naihati while Bimal Das will be contesting from Haroa.
Suvojit Roy will contest the by-elections from Midnapore and Ananya Roy Chowdhury from Taldangra.
In the by-election for the Madarihat Assembly Constituency in the 2021 Assembly elections, Manoj Tigga won the seat for the BJP with a margin of 29,685 votes. In the recent 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP further strengthened its position in this Assembly segment, gaining an additional 11,063 votes. Despite this, the TMC is eager to reclaim the seat, viewing the relatively narrow margin in the Lok Sabha elections as an opportunity.
Madarihat has been a BJP stronghold since 2016, but TMC has launched an intense campaign to turn the tide.
For the Sitai seat, in the 2021 Assembly elections, BJP’s Deepak Kumar Roy lost to Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia by approximately ten thousand votes.
Despite this defeat, the BJP has reiterated its confidence in Roy for this by-election. Both candidates have expressed optimism about their chances of victory.
In the 2021 elections, the TMC candidate secured a win over Deepak Kumar Roy by a margin exceeding ten thousand votes. Following the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which Jagdish Chandra Barma Basunia was elected an MP as a TMC candidate, a by-election was necessitated for the Sitai Assembly seat.
Meanwhile, the Congress and the Left have yet to announce their candidates for the upcoming by-polls.
Moreover, it is still unclear whether they would opt for a seat-sharing arrangement in this bypolls. Both parties have been contesting polls in a seat-sharing arrangement since 2016.
CPI(M) sources said neither the party received any proposal from Congress yet nor was the grand old party approached for such an arrangement.
Congress sources said that such decisions will be taken by the party high command but the consensus is to move ahead independently.
The bypolls are being considered the first litmus test for all the major political parties, especially the TMC, the BJP, and the CPI(M), following the two-month-long protests by doctors seeking justice for their colleague in the RG Kar case.
