A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee confirmed that she would contest from the high profile Nandigram seat, throwing a challenge to her protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari who crossed over to the BJP in December, the saffron party pitted Adhikari against Banerjee from the seat.
The BJP, on Saturday, came out with its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal polls, most notable of them being the party's most most prized acquisition from the TMC fold, Suvendu Adhikari. Former Indian cricketer Ashoke Dinda and former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh are among the BJP candidates in the first list.
With this the party has announced candidates for all but three of the 60 seats which will go to polls in the first two of the eight-phase elections to be held between March 27 and April 29.
Confirming her candidature only from Nandigram, the West Bengal chief minister had earlier said, "I will contest from Nandigram as I stick to my words....On March 9, we will release our manifesto. On March 10, I will file my nomination for the Nandigram seat."
Banerjee had announced in January that she would contest the poll from the Nandigram seat in Purba Medinipur district.
Banerjee and Adhikari were the prominent figures of the anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram in 2007 that ultimately catapulted the firebrand TMC supremo to power in West Bengal in 2011, ending the 34-year-old rule of the Left Front.
Adhikari had won from Nandigram in the 2016 assembly election. He had time and again expressed his desire to take on his former boss directly in Nandigram after switching over to the saffron fold.
—With PTI inputs
