Official published list is final: TMC
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress came up with changes in its candidate list late on Friday night and circulated it among the district presidents. The new list of the party has been undersigned by state president Subrata Bakshi and party secretary general Partha Chatterjee. At least 20 per cent of changes have been made to the new list.
Senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim said someone might have misused the password of TMC's website and released several candidate lists for February 27 civic polls in West Bengal, creating confusion.
"I think, someone misused our trust by giving multiple candidate lists on the website. Some mischief was done and it later got corrected. The final list must bear the signature of our state president Subrata Bakshi and it has been finalised with the approval of our chairperson Mamata Banerjee," Hakim said. He added that the party will probe the matter and find out what went wrong.
The candidate list was announced for 107 of the 108 municipalities where polls are going to be held on February 27.
On Saturday, directions were issued to every single district that only Mamata Banerjee's picture can be used for campaigning and the development schemes of her government should be the poll plank.
Interestingly, the TMC candidate list has a blend of experience and youth. The party has followed 'one man one post' dictum with few MLAs getting a ticket to contest in the civic elections. Dulal Das, chairman of Maheshtala municipality in South 24-Parganas, is, however, an exception.
Arindam Guin whose name figured in the candidate list of Baidyabati municipality was called up by Chatterjee on Saturday morning and was asked not to contest in adherence to 'one man one post' guideline. Guin is the MLA from Champdani in Hooghly.
Das will be contesting from ward 15 instead of ward 17 from where he had fought the elections last time.
In ward 21 under Bolpur municipality in Birbhum, MSME minister Chandranath Sinha's daughter Kuntala Sinha will be contesting while Kamarhati MLA Madan Mitra's daughter-in-law Meghna has got a ticket from ward 16 of the Kamarhati municipality.
Former Khardah MLA Kajal Sinha's wife Nandita will be contesting from ward 4 of the Khardah municipality.
There was resentment in some areas like Kamarhati, Maheshtala, East Burdwan, Cooch Behar and Kanthi over the candidate list. The INTTUC stopped transport services from ward 1 to 7 in Kamarhati in protest.
In other parts, tyres were set on fire as a mark of protest.
Senior TMC leader of North 24-Parganas Jyotipriya Mallick said the Opposition has been organising such protests and putting the blame on TMC. "We are an organised party and everyone has approved the list. There is no resentment among TMC party workers," Mallick said.
