TMC releases candidate list for KMC polls, drops 39 sitting councilors

The TMC on Friday announced names of candidates for elections to the 144-ward Kolkata Municipal Corporation, dropping 39 sitting councillors.

The ruling party in West Bengal in the last KMC polls in 2015 had won 126 wards.

"The party has decided not to renominate 39 sitting councillors. We will use them in some other organisational work," TMC Lok Sabha party leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said.

The party fielded 64 female candidates, and 23 are from the minority community, he said.

Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen, who was also a councillor in the outgoing KMC board, was not renominated this time.

TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said six sitting MLAs, including chairman of the board of administrators of KMC Firhad Hakim, has been given the nomination.

The elections to KMC, along with 112 other municipalities and municipal corporations, were due in April-May 2020. But the polls were postponed due to the raging COVID pandemic.

These civic bodies are now being run by state-appointed boards of administrators.