Kolkata, March 23 – The Congress and All India Secular Front (AISF) are likely to release their respective candidate lists on Monday.
The Congress party is expected to release its first list of 100 candidates for the 294-seat West Bengal Assembly. The AISF, which will have a seat-sharing arrangement with the CPI(M)-led Left Front, is expected to announce its candidates for all 33 seats it will contest.
Congress has decided to end its seat-sharing arrangement with the Left Front, which began in the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections. It will contest independently in all 294 Assembly constituencies in the state.
"In all probability, the name of the former state Congress president in West Bengal and former five-time party Lok Sabha member, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, will be in the first list likely to be released today. Chowdhury will be contesting from one of the 22 Assembly constituencies in his native Murshidabad district," said a member of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, who is known to be a close confidant of Chowdhury.
He also said that the name of the former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member, Mausam Benazir Noor, who had recently returned to Congress, might also be in the first list of candidates. She is expected to contest either from the Sujapur or Malatipur Assembly Constituency in her native Malda district.
"The first list will mainly include names of candidates for the Assembly constituencies in districts which have traditionally been strongholds for the Congress, such as Malda, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur, and Purulia," said the WBPCC member.
Meanwhile, from the list of 33 Assembly constituencies, where the AISF will announce its candidates, it is clear that while there will be an overall alliance with the Left Front, there will also be friendly contests with some Left Front allies, especially the All India Forward Bloc, in certain constituencies.
In fact, the Forward Bloc was the only Left Front ally that had opposed a seat-sharing arrangement with the AISF. In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls, there was a three-way alliance between Congress, the Left Front, and the AISF.
While the Left Front and Congress could not send a single MLA to the Assembly in 2021, Nawsad Siddique was elected as the sole AISF representative in the Assembly after being elected from Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district.