The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its second list of candidates for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly Elections. The second list, comprising 111 names, came three days after the saffron party released its first list of 144 names for the West Bengal Elections.
West Bengal has 294 assembly seats. The Assembly Elections in West Bengal are scheduled for April 23 and 29. The results will be announced on 4 May.
The names in the second list include former Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nisith Pramanik, who has been fielded from the Mathabhanga assembly constituency.
Pramanik, 40, represented the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency until 2024, but lost the general elections that year.
The party has also fielded actor-turned-politician Roopa Ganguly from the Sonarpur Dakshin assembly seat, while Rekha Patra will contest from Hingalganj. Patra was BJP’s candidate from Basirhat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The West Bengal election is being seen as a fight between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The TMC, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeehas been in power in West Bengal since 2011, for three consecutive terms.
The rise of the BJP post 2014
Over the past few years, the BJP has witnessed a steady rise in West Bengal. For decades, the state was dominated first by the Left Front and then by the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Banerjee, and the saffron party was almost non-existent before 2014.
The BJP has never been in power in the West Bengal assembly. The first big breakthrough came in the 2014 Indian general election when the BJP won 2 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The vote share jumped to about 17 percent in the general elections.
In the 2016 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, the BJP’s vote share rose to around 10%, and it won 3 seats. The real surge came in the 2019 Indian general election, when the BJP won 18 of 42 Lok Sabha seats, and its vote share crossed 40%.
What happened in the 2021 Elections?
In 2021 assembly polls, the incumbent Trinamool Congress The government led by Mamata Banerjee won the election by a landslide, despite opinion polls generally predicting a close race against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which became the official opposition with 77 seats.
For the first time in the history of Bengal, no members from the Congress and the Communist Party were elected. Although Mamata Banerjee retained power, the BJP became the principal opposition in the state.
