West Bengal LS candidates campaign in top gear on holiday

Candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal sought to make the most of the second Sunday after the announcement of poll dates, leading processions and holding door-to-door campaigns in their constituencies.

Candidates of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP were seen going about different localities with party workers and supporters in tow.

The TMC was the first to announce its list for the seven-phase elections in West Bengal, while the BJP declared the names of 28 candidates out of a total of 42 seats in the state, on Thursday.

Election fever was quite high at Coochbehar and Alipurduars, the two constituencies in West Bengal which go for polls in the first phase on April 11, with nominees trying to cover as much area as possible.

Rahul Sinha, one of the saffron party's national secretaries and a candidate from the Kolkata North seat, paid obeisance at the famous 'Thantania Kali Temple' before walking down the lanes and bylanes of his constituency seeking the blessings of voters.

Constituencies in Kolkata and adjoining districts will go for polling in the last phase of elections on May 19, but that did not deter candidates of all major parties, including the TMC, the CPI(M) and the Congress from hitting the streets since early.

TMC's candidates from the film arena -- Munmun Sen in Asansol, Nusrat Jahan in Basirhat and Mimi Chakraborty in Jadavpur, were out on the campaign trail, braving the sultry weather.

Nusrat, a first-time candidate and a greenhorn in the political world, was seen explaining to people that she is not a migratory bird that will be visible only during the elections, and vowed to serve the constituency diligently if elected.

BJP West Bengal president Dilip Ghosh held meetings with party workers in his constituency Kharagpur, while leaders like Mukul Roy and Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta were seen engrossed in discussions at the party's state headquarters.

National president Amit Shah has set an ambitious target of winning at least 50 per cent of the 42 seats in the state, where it has only two seats.

In the 2014 general elections, singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo won the Asansol seat and S S Ahluwalia the Darjeeling seat, with active support of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which was then led by Bimal Gurung.

Though the Darjeeling seat goes for polls in the second phase on April 18 and the last date of filing nominations is March 26, the BJP had not announced the name of its candidate for the constituency till Sunday evening.

The political equation in the hills this time is quite different with Binay Tamang, who is close to the TMC in the state, heading the GJM.

The TMC-GJM combine has fielded Amar Singh Rai, the latter's Darjeeling MLA, as the candidate for the Lok Sabha constituency.

Ahluwalia is the BJP MP from the Darjeeling seat.

In the prestigious South Kolkata constituency, TMC candidate and Kolkata Municipal Corporation chairperson Mala Roy, BJP's Chandra Bose, a grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and CPI(M)'s Nandini Mukhopadhyay, a professor at Jadavpur University, were seen in different localities connecting with the people.

Senior lawyer and former mayor of Kolkata, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who is pitted against Mimi in Jadavpur, was also seen making the rounds of the constituency.