The party said that it announced the names of 20 candidates from among the 26 seats for which it has an alliance with the Left Front
Abbas Siddiqui-led Indian Secular Front (ISF), an alliance partner of the Left Front and the Congress in the State, on March 14 announced the names of candidates for 20 constituencies in the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.
ISF president Simul Soren will contest from Haripal in Hooghly district, while Mohammed Iqbal and Nuruzzaman will be the party’s candidates from Entally and Metiabruz, respectively, it said in a statement.
ISF is yet to announce the names of candidates from Canning Purba, Jangipara, Bhangar, Madhyamgram, Haroa and Mayureshwar — the seats it has identified to fight from as a part of the alliance.
The party said that it announced the names of 20 candidates from among the 26 seats for which it has an alliance with the Left Front.
While the Left Front has given 30 seats to the ISF from its kitty, the Congress, from which the Siddique-led party demanded 15 seats, has agreed to give it only eight from its share.
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BJP leader Suvendu Adhikary, who is pitted against his mentor West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Nandigram in the coming state election, has declared net worth of over Rs 80 lakh. As per the 50-year-old leader’s affidavit to the Election Commission his net worth is Rs 80,66,749.32.
His movable assets are worth Rs 59,31,647.32 while his bank balance is Rs 46,15,513.32, including Rs 41,823 in his election expenditure account. His income in 2019-20 was Rs 1,115,715.00 and his cash in hand is Rs 50,000.00, as per his affidavit.
Adhikari also has National Saving Certificate (NSC) deposit of RS 5,45,000 and insurance of Rs 7,71,165. Adhikary has immovable assets including plots of land worth Rs 46,21,102, it said.
In his affidavit the BJP leader has declared that he has criminal cases pending against him. He also declared himself to be a post graduate from Rabindra Bharati University and a resident of Nandigram constituency.
Adhikari had filed his nomination for the high octane battle at Nandigram on Friday. Polling in the constituency is slated for April 1.
BJP MP Locket Chatterjee on Saturday visited the residence of TMC’s Lok Sabha member Sisir Adhikari, who is also the father of political heavyweight and the saffron party’s Nandigram candidate Suvendu Adhikari, raising speculation that the veteran leader might switch camp ahead of the Bengal assembly polls. Chatterjee, who had lunch at the Adhikari residence at Contai, stressed that it was ”courtesy call”, and Sisir Adhikaris political move was not discussed during the meeting, even as political corridors went abuzz with murmurs that the TMC MP might join the saffron camp during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state later this month.
Sources told News18 that Locket Chatterjee has invited Sisir Adhikari to PM Modi’s Contai on March 24.
”It was a courtesy lunch. Sisirda is a senior politician and the Adhikari family is synonymous with Medinipur (of which Nandigram is a part). He had once praised my Lok Sabha speech. We share good rapport. He requested me to visit him again,” the BJP leader said. She, however, clarified that the BJP would welcome the TMC MP with open arms if he decides to join the party.
Sisir Adhikari, on his part, told reporters that two of his sons are BJP members, and ”Locket visiting his residence should not surprise anyone. Why should anyone have their eyebrows raised when a leader makes a courtesy visit?” Veteran TMC leader Sougata Roy, when approached, said ”Sisirda has largely remained inactive in the recent times…We will urge him not to join the ’dal badal’ (party changing) game, given his advanced age and ailments.” BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya claimed that all of Purba Medinipur wants the Adhikari family patriarch to join the saffron camp.
Notably, Suvendu Adhikari and his brother Soumendu, who also joined the BJP two months ago, were not at home during the BJP MP’s visit to their residence. Their other brother, Dibyendu — also a TMC MP – was present at the lunch meet.
Assembly Elections 2021 News LIVE Updates: The BJP on Saturday is all set to declare names for candidates for Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The meeting will start at 5 pm on Saturday.
The BJP Kerala core group meeting will also take place at party chief JP Nadda’s residence in Delhi before the CEC meeting. Apart from Nadda, Amit Shah, BL Santhosh, K Surendran were also present. This was the meeting ahead of CEC on Saturday.
While Mamata Banerjee has been discharged from hospital on Friday, and left the hospital in a wheelchair, the TMC has already announced an event on Saturday to induct into the party “an eminent personality”. TMC MP Derek O’ Brien, anchayat and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee, and TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay will be present for the event that will be held in Trinamool Bhavan.
As many as 170 MLAs left the Congress to join other parties during the elections held between 2016-2020, while only 18 BJP legislators switched parties to contest the polls in this period, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The report said between 2016-2020, 182 of the 405 re-contesting MLAs, who switched political parties, joined the BJP, followed by 38 who joined the Congress and 25 who joined the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
Here’s a look at some of the prominent names that quit parties or switched sides ahead of elections:
Jyotiraditya Scindia
Jyotiraditya Scindia had switched over to the BJP in March 2020 along with 22 supporter MLAs. Their resignation from the Congress and the MP Assembly led to the fall of the Kamal Nath government on March 20, and return of Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister on March 23. In his resignation letter, Scindia said he was unable to serve the country and his state while remaining in the Congress.
Suvendu Adhikari
West Bengal political heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari joined the BJP on December 19, 2020 days after he resigned from the Trinamool Congress and gave up his cabinet portfolios in the Mamata Banerjee government. In an open letter addressed to the grassroots members of the Trinamool Congress, Adhikari said West Bengal is standing at a critical juncture as the people of the state are destined to make a choice in the 2021 Assembly elections that will impact them forever. Adhikari said that “an extremely deep rot and malaise” has set in in the Trinamool Congress.
Dinesh Trivedi
On February 12 this year, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Dinesh Trivedi resigned from Rajya Sabha over “violence” taking place in Bengal ahead of assembly elections. He further said that he was feeling ‘restless’, ‘suffocated’ and finding it difficult to work in the TMC for quite some time. Trivedi joined the BJP on March 6, 2021.
Ramesh Jarkiholi
Congress rebel Ramesh Jarkiholi resigned and joined BJP in 2019. In June 2016, he was inducted into the Siddaramaiah-led government of Karnataka as a cabinet minister. He held the Small Scale Industries Ministry portfolio. He was disqualified from the assembly as per the anti-defection law in 2019, but was re-elected to the assembly on a BJP ticket in December 2019.
Tom Vadakkan
Once a key aide to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, prominent spokesperson Tom Vadakkan left the party after serving for almost two decades for its leaders in March 2019. He attacked his party for its stand on the Balakot airstrike as ‘sad’ and joined BJP in the presence of the then party president Amit Shah and minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Sabita Indra Reddy
Sabitha Indra Reddy was Home Minister in the Congress government in united Andhra Pradesh. On June 7, 2019, five Congress MLAs, led by senior MLA Sabita Indra Reddy, met TRS working president K T Rama Rao and submitted a list of 12 MLAs willing to join the ruling party.
Rita Bahuguna Joshi
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee Chief and MLA Rita Bahuguna Joshi quit Congress and joined BJP in October 2016. She hit out at Rahul Gandhi and top leaders saying the leadership was not acceptable to people as the grand old party had lost its reputation under them.
Khushbu Sundar
Actor-turned-politician Khushbu Sundar quit the Congress on Monday to join the BJP saying that she had realised that the nation can only move forward under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She joined the saffron party at its national headquarters. In her career in politics, Khushbu first served in the DMK and then joined Congress. With the BJP, she begins her 3rd innings in politics. Khushbu, while resigning, in a letter to Sonia Gandhi also protested against what she termed as some leaders’ “dictating terms”.
Urmila Matondkar
Bollywood actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar, who contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket, quit the party in barely five months saying she did not wish to be used for “petty in-house politics”. “It is obvious that the key functionaries of Mumbai Congress are either unable or not committed to bring about a change and transformation in the organisation for the betterment of the party,” she said in a statement to the media. She later joined the Shiv Sena.
PC Chacko
Kerala Congress leader PC Chacko on Wednesday submitted his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi saying that it had become difficult to be a Congress leader in Kerala. This comes even as the party has been finalising its list in Kerala that goes to polls on April 6. “No democracy left in Congress. Candidate list has not been discussed with the state Congress committee. I have sent my resignation to Sonia Gandhi,” he said. He has, however, denied plans of joining BJP so far.
The ruling Trinamool Congress Friday announced its full list of candidates for the upcoming eight-phased Assembly elections in West Bengal. The party would contest 291 seats out of the total 294 while reserving the remaining three seats in Darjeeling for its allies.
While Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would contest from Nandigram seat, vacating her Bhawanipore seat. Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay will contest from Bhawanipore seat in her place.
Here’s the full list of candidates announced by the TMC:
After announcing the names of candidates, Banerjee said, “Have faith in me, only TMC can take Bengal to new heights”.
She further said that 23-24 existing TMC MLAs have been dropped due to age and other factors. Given the Covid-19pandemic, those candidates who are more than eighty years of age have been replaced with new and younger face.
