Kolkata, Mar 21 (PTI) West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and the son of a sitting MP are among 56 candidates who feature in the third list of nominees announced by the party for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The party has announced candidates for eight out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
It presently holds two Lok Sabha seats – Berhampore and Maldaha Dakshin – in the state.
Following are the key Congress candidates from West Bengal: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Berhampore): The leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha, Chowdhury is a five-term MP from the seat in the minority-dominated Murshidabad district.
The 67-year-old Chowdhury, who also doubles up as the state Congress president, is probably the only mass leader the grand old party has in the state.
An architect of the Congress-Left Front alliance in the state in 2016, Chowdhury is a bitter critic of the TMC government in West Bengal. He is presently in talks with the Left for clinching a seat-sharing deal in the state.
The re-nomination of Chowdhury from Berhampore has set the stage for the much-anticipated clash between the veteran Congress leader and cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan, who has been fielded by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Known as the ‘Robin Hood of Berhampore’, Chowdhury won the seat in 2019 by a margin of over 80,000 votes with a vote share of 45.5 per cent.
Isha Khan Choudhury (Maldaha Dakshin): The son of sitting MP and Congress leader Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury, Isha is a two-time Congress MLA from 2011-2021.
In 2021, he failed to win the Sujapur assembly seat.
The scion of Congress stalwart ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury’s family, Isha spent much of his life in Canada before taking a plunge into politics in 2011.
His 86-year-old father, Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury, a four-term sitting MP from the Maldaha-Dakshin seat, has decided to step aside due to failing health.
Known for his well-researched speeches in the West Bengal assembly, the 52-year-old Isha is presently a senior leader of the Bengal Congress unit.
Pradip Bhattacharya (Kolkata North): One of the most senior leaders of West Bengal Congress unit, Bhattacharya is a two-term Rajya Sabha MP and a one-term Lok Sabha MP from the state.
A former state Congress president, Bhattacharya served as a minister in the Siddhartha Sankar Ray government in West Bengal from 1972-1977, the last Congress government in the state. In Kolkata North Lok Sabha constituency, he will be up against five-term MP and TMC candidate Sudip Bandyopadhyay.
The other seats where the party has decided to field candidates are Jangipur, Raiganj, Maldah Uttar, Purulia and Birbhum.
While Murtoza Hossain is contesting from Jangipur, Nepal Mahato has been fielded from Purulia. Similarly, Ali Amran Ramz will contest from Raiganj, Mostaque Alam (Maldah Uttar) and Milton Rashid has been named as the candidate from Birbhum, the AICC statement said. PTI SUS BDC PNT MNB
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