The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday fielded party veteran and Siliguri resident Gautam Deb from Siliguri, one of the most prominent Assembly seats in north Bengal and the state, and nominated some new faces for some other seats of the region.
Deb will contest from Siliguri for the first time, his main rivals being the BJP’s Shankar Ghosh, the sitting MLA, and the CPM’s Sharadindu Chakraborty.
“Since 2011, the party had been giving the Siliguri ticket to people from other fields and other places, one of the main reasons why Trinamool could win here only once during Mamata Banerjee’s tenure, and that too in 2011,” said a political observer.
In 2011, Trinamool’s Rudranath Bhattacharjee, a doctor, defeated CPM veteran Asok Bhattacharya. In 2016, Bhattacharya defeated Trinamool candidate, former footballer Bhaichung Bhutia. In 2021, the BJP won Siliguri for the first time, with its nominee Shankar Ghosh defeating the Trinamool candidate, academic Omprakash Mishra.
While Bhattacharjee was based in Siliguri, Bhutia was parachuted from Sikkim and Mishra from Calcutta. Unlike Deb, they did not have roots in Trinamool.
Deb won in 2011 and 2016 from Dabgram-Fulbari, an Assembly seat with 14 wards of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and four contiguous panchayats of Jalpaiguri district, but lost to the BJP’s Sikha Chatterjee in 2021.
After his nomination, Deb said: “I have sincerely worked for Siliguri in various capacities. It is my birthplace. People here know I have always tried to deliver my best.”
Trinamool also nominated two sportspersons — cricketer Shib Shankar Paul and heptathlete Swapna Barman — from Tufanganj in Cooch Behar and Rajganj in Jalpaiguri, respectively.
The party also named Krishna Das, the district president of the Trinamool’s ST and OBC cell in Jalpaiguri, as its Jalpaiguri candidate.
In the Dooars tea belt, Trinamool brought in two new faces, both trade union leaders.
Sanjay Kuzur, the vice-president of the Trinamool Cha Bagan Sramik Union (TCBSU), will contest from Nagrakata in Jalpaiguri. Birendra Bara, the TCBSU president of Alipurduar, has been fielded from Kalchini.
In Cooch Behar, the party fielded Harihar Das, a close aide of Nagendra Roy aka Ananta Maharaj, the Rajya Sabha member of the BJP, who heads a Greater Cooch Behar Peoples’ Association faction.
In Malda, the party changed the seat of minister Sabina Yeasmin, fielding her from Sujapur instead of Mothabari. Ashish Kundu, the district Trinamool spokesperson, has been fielded from Englishbazar.
Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee said her party would not field candidates in the three hill seats of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong, citing an “understanding” with Anit Thapa, who heads the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha.