Kolkata, March 19 – The CPI(M)-led Left Front announced its second list of candidates for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections on Thursday, comprising 32 names.
In the first list released on March 14, the names of candidates for 192 constituencies were announced. Therefore, the names of 224 candidates out of the total 294 seats have been announced so far.
Of the 32 candidates whose names were announced in the second list, one was from the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), three from the CPI, and the remaining 28 were from the CPI-M.
This time, the CPI-M has decided not to field its own candidate from the high-profile Nandigram assembly constituency in East Midnapore district, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, sitting MLA and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, and a CPI candidate will be contesting from there. Adhikari is also contesting simultaneously this time from the Bhabanipur assembly constituency in South Kolkata against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Like the first list, the names of the CPI-M's state Secretary and politburo member, Md Salim, and the CPI-M Central Committee member and the former Left Front legislative party leader, Dr Sujan Chakraborty, were also not in the second list.
The name of the popular youth and media face of the party, Satarup Ghosh, was not in either of the two lists. It had been decided that instead of contesting themselves, these three leaders would move around the state campaigning for the Left Front candidates this time.
The Left Front had already announced that they will leave 10 seats for the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist, which is the biggest Left force in neighboring Bihar. The CPI-ML had already announced the names of their candidates for those 10 assembly constituencies allotted to it.
Meanwhile, seat-sharing arrangement dialogues between the Left Front and the All India Secular Front (AISF) are still continuing, with the junior Left Front ally, All India Forward Bloc, being the only force opposing that arrangement with the AISF.
