Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has officially announced the list of candidates for the 42 seats in West Bengal for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Despite being part of the INDIA alliance, TMC will be contesting the elections independently. The announcement of the candidates took place at Brigade Ground in Kolkata by Mamata Banerjee.
The former cricketer Yusuf Pathan will be running for the Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency, where he will be up against the veteran Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary. Mahua Moitra will once again be representing TMC in the Krishnanagar Lok Sabha seat.
Abhishek Banerjee, the National General Secretary and MP of Trinamool Congress, unveiled the list of candidates for the 42 Lok Sabha seats. Shatrughan Sinha has been chosen as the TMC candidate for Asansol. The party intends to contest in West Bengal, Assam, and Meghalaya, with ongoing discussions about a single seat in UP with Akhilesh Yadav.
The announcement of TMC candidates has come as a surprise to the ‘INDIA’ alliance, as the two parties, Congress and Trinamool, failed to come to an agreement on a seat-sharing formula.
The list of candidates for the upcoming elections includes Jagdish C Basunia for Cooch Behar (SC), Prakash Chik Badaik for Alipurduar (ST), and Nirmal Chaudhary Roy for Jalpaiguri (SC), among others.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh expressed disappointment with TMC’s decision to field candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. Congress has always pushed for a negotiated seat-sharing deal with TMC to strengthen the ‘INDIA’ alliance against the BJP.