Tale of two sets of candidates

TMC goes for local celebrities, Left relies on party old timers to contest Lok Sabha

Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, today announced candidates for 42Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal that includes about a dozen local celebrities, in sharp contrast to Left Front's focus on old timers inpolitics in its choice of candidates.

Apart from sitting TMC Lok Sabha MP representing Tollywood like Tapas Paland Shatabdi Roy, Mamata's list of candidates this time includes morefaces from Tollywood including popular actor, Dipak Adhikari, aliasDev, Moon Moon Sen (daughter of late Suchitra Sen) and Sandhya Roy.In addition to this, two well-known Bengali singers Indranil Sen and Soumitra Roy (Bhoomi singer) along with theatre personality ArpitaGhosh have manged to bag TMC tickets for the upcoming Lok Sabha poll.However, along expected lines rebel TMC MP from Jadavpur and singerKabir Suman has been denied TMC ticket, educationist Sugata Bose has replaced him as candidate in the constituency.

FormerIndian football captain Baichung Bhutia has been nominated as TMCcandidates from Darjeeling, while former footballer and sitting MPfrom Howrah, Prasun Mukherjee has retained has seat.

Whilemost of the senior TMC leaders like Saugata Roy, Dinesh Trivadi,Kalyan Banerjee, Sudip Banerjee have retained their seats, MamataBanerjee's nephew Abhisek Banerjee, who is also tipped to be as thepolitical inheritor of West Bengal chief minister by many, will make his eletoral debut in this election contesting from Diamond Harbourseat.

“Wehave nominated people from different fields because I want in LokSabha Bengal to be represented by people from all walks of life,”Mamata Banerjee said while making the announcement.

LeftFront, which too today announced candiadtes in West Bengal, howerverrelied on party old timers in their pick of candidates. Apart fromnoted CPI-M leader Basudeb Achariya, Sujan Chakrabarty, Md Selim whowere again nominated this year, there are 26 new faces in Left's listof candidates. CPI-M central committee member from Uttar PradeshSubhasini Ali too has been nominated by the party as a candidate forBarrackpur constituency in West Bengal. Alsothere are as many 12 candidates from minority community in Left'slist compared to seven nominated by TMC.Two former state ministers – Ashim Dasgupta(former finance minister)and Debesh Das (former It minister) – who lost in the assemblyelection 2011, too have been nominated by CPI-M for 2014 Lok Sabhapoll.