BJP, TMC release list of star campaigners for Bengal bypolls

The BJP has released a list of 20 star campaigners, which include Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Giriraj Singh , to campaign in West Bengal for byelections to four assembly constituencies.

The four seats going to polls on October 30 are Dinhata (Cooch Behar), Santipur (Nadia), Khardaha (North 24 Parganas) and Gosaba (South 24 Parganas).

Two of these seats -- Dinhata and Santipur -- were won by BJP candidates Nishith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar in the recent state elections, but they resigned to keep their parliament seats.


The other names in the BJP list for campaigning are: Assam CM Himanta Biswasarma, ministers of state Nishith Pramanik, Shantanu Thakur and John Barla and BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar

The Trinamool Congress also released the names of 20-star campaigners which include Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, AITC national secretary Abhisek Banerjee, party secretary general Partha Chatterjee and other senior leaders. Trinamool Congress was the first to announce its candidate, followed by the BJP. The CPI-M and Congress will fight the bypolls separately.

The BJP candidates are: Ashok Mondal (Dinhata), Joy Saha (Khardaha), Palash Raha (Gosaba) and Niranjan Biswas (Shantipur).

The Trinamool candidates are Udayan Guha (Dinhata ), Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay (Khardaha), Subrata Mondal (Gosaba) and Braj Kishore Goswami (Santipur). Votes will be counted on November 2.