In what is seen a strategic nomination to corner Trinamool and Mamata Banerjee, the BJP on Wednesday named the mother of RG Kar Medical College rape victim as one of its candidates in the upcoming assembly polls.
The BJP said Ratna Debnath's name was approved by its Central Election Committee. The third list also names 19 other candidates.
Who is Ratna Debnath?
Ratna Debnath is the mother of a PG trainee doctor who was raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August 2024.
She is contesting on BJP ticket from Panihati, which is constituency number 111. The constituency comes under North 24 Parganas, which is considered a stronghold of the TMC. She and her husband joined the BJP shortly before her candidacy was officially confirmed.
Debnath said her decision to contest elections is driven by her desire to seek justice for her daughter and address issues like women's safety and corruption in West Bengal.
"We want justice for our daughter, so we are with the BJP. We had said that we won’t allow anyone to do politics with our child’s death. What did the Left do other than just protest? It has instead done things so that we don’t get justice. The way the Left ran the state in the past and now they are helping the TMC to stay in power. We don’t want to know who the candidate is who is to fight against us," Debnath said last week.
TMC has fielded Tirthankar Ghosh, son of the sitting MLA Nirmal Ghosh, in Panihati. The CPI(M) candidate from Panihati is Kalatan Dasgupta, a key face during the protests against RG Kar incident.
Former NSG officer Dipanjan Chakraborty has been fielded in Uttarpara while Dr Sankar Guchait is contesting from Medinipur and Arup Kumar Das is fighting elections from Singur.
Panihati will vote in the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections on April 29.