Siliguri, March 20: Trinamul today came out with its list of candidates for the Siliguri Municipal Corporation elections baring the prospect of a contest between Arup Ratan Ghosh, the INTTUC leader, and one-time CPM strongman Asok Bhattacharya.

While most of the contestants have been fielded from wards as predicted, Arup Ratan's candidature, which was a bit uncertain, has ensured that ward 6 will be Siliguri's most watched seat.

Asok is being projected in the Left as the mayoral face. Arup Ratan, on the other hand, is the Darjeeling district president of Trinamul's labour wing INTTUC. The name of Milan Dutta, a second-tier Trinamul leader, had done the rounds earlier for ward 6, but Arup Ratan's position in the organisation won him the berth.

The other prominent candidates are minister Gautam Deb's wife Shukla Deb from ward 17, Nantu Pal from ward 12, his wife Manjushree from 11, Ranjan Silsharma from 37, Ranjan Sarkar from 20, Krishna Pal from ward 23, Pratul Chakraborty from 24 and Jaydip Nandi from ward 32.

Against Shukla, Pal and Silsharma, rivals have put up comparative lightweights.

Party sources said that out of the 15 Trinamul former councillors in the last civic board, 11 have got nominations this time.

"The minister (Deb) and former councillors Arindam Mitra and Purabi Sen are not contesting this time. Prakash Das, another former councillor, has left Trinamul and joined the Congress a couple of days back," a Trinamul leader said.

There was a sporadic show of dissent by some disgruntled party workers, but Deb refused to take them seriously.

Around 12.30pm, Deb, along with other district leaders, announced the names of candidates.

"We have published the final list of all candidates for all seats, unlike other parties which are yet to announce names of candidates in some seats. Our party workers and leaders have already started campaigning in the past few weeks. From today, the campaigns will speed up and each of the candidates will focus on his seat. I will be there with all of them and work on a specific campaign strategy," Deb said.

Another ward to watch out would be ward no 25. Trinamul leader Vedabrata Dutta will contest against former leader of Opposition Nurul Islam.

In ward 16, where Sujoy Ghatak, one of the few prominent faces of Congress is contesting, Trinamul has fielded Pradip Deb.

Party leaders such as Dipak Seal and Milan Dutta and dissidents such as Gopal Saha, whose names were doing the rounds, however, could not find a place in the list. Saha has left Trinamul.

Deb, when asked about the mayoral candidate, said: "Once the results are declared and Trinamul secures the maximum possible seats, it will be up to the state leaders to decide who will be the mayor from our party."

He said: "This time, we have fielded 29 new faces and 21 women candidates."