BJP releases first list of 144 candidates for Bengal Assembly polls; Suvendu Adhikari to contest from Bhabanipur seat, home turf of Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Assembly LoP Suvendu Adhikari
| Photo Credit:
ANI

The BJP on Monday released its first list of 144 candidates for the West Bengal Assembly elections, setting the stage for a high-stakes contest by announcing that Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari will contest the poll from the Bhabanipur seat, the constituency and home turf of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in south Kolkata.

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Adhikari has also been fielded from his Nandigram seat in Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP leader had defeated Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress supremo, from the Nandigram constituency. Following her defeat, Banerjee re-entered the Assembly after a by-poll in Bhabanipur.

Months before the polls schedule announcement, Adhikari said he would contest from Bhabanipur and defeat Banerjee again.

According to BJP’s candidate list, Dilip Ghosh, the former Bengal president of the party, will be contesting from the Kharagpur Sadar constituency, his old seat, where he had won in 2016. Party leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Das Gupta has been fielded from Rasbehari seat in south Kolkata.

Two phases

In West Bengal, voting will be conducted in two phases on April 23 and April 29. The first phase in the State will cover 152 Assembly constituencies, and the second phase will cover 142 constituencies.

Left Front on Monday announced its first list of 192 candidates for the assembly elections, with outgoing Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and CPI(M) central committee member Minakshi Mukherjee among prominent nominees.

Bhattacharya, Mayor of Kolkata from 2005 to 2010, will contest from the Jadavpur constituency in the southern outskirts of the city, while Mukherjee, a youth face of the Left Front, has been fielded from Uttarpara in Hooghly district.

Mukherjee had contested from Nandigram in the 2021 Assembly elections and came third after BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee.

Published on March 16, 2026