West Bengal left front announces its candidates for by-elections to three assembly seats

KOLKATA: The opposition Left Front in West Bengal has announced its candidates for the by-elections to the three Assembly seats in the state which will take place on February 14.

Kaushik Mishra of the CPIM will contest the Englishbazar seat in Malda district while Sijarul Islam of the RSP will fight the Rezinagar seat in Murshidabad district. Dipak Chatterjee of the Forward Bloc is the Left candidate for the Nalhati seat in Birbhum district.

The Front met on Monday morning to finalise its candidates for the by-elections and the chairman Biman Bose has announced the names after the meeting. All the three seats fell vacant following resignations of three former Congress MLAs who had won the seat in 2011.

Interestingly, contests at the Englishbazar and Rezinagar will be interesting as two new Trinamool Congress ministers---Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury and Humayun Kabir are in the fray from the two seats respectively.

Even though both Chowdhury and Kabir won the seats on Congress tickets, they had resigned from the state legislature recently to join Trinamool Congress and become ministers in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet. Since they resigned from the state Assembly, the two seats fell vacant.

The Nalhati seat in Birbhum district fell vacant after the former Congress MLA and son of the President Pranab Mukherjee, Abhijit resigned from the state Assembly to contest the Jangipur Lok Sabha seat which was won by his father during 2009 lok sabha elections.

Pranab Mukherjee resigned from the Lok Sabha to become the President and his son Abhijit had contested the lok sabha seat and won it.

The ruling Trinamool Congress is yet to announce its candidates for the three seats officially. But it is certain the two of its ministers Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury and Humayun Kabit will be the party nominees for the Englishbazar and Rezinagar seats respectively.

Trinamool Congress will now have to announce their candidatures officially along with the name for their candidate for the Nalhati seat. The Congress too, will have to announce their candidates for the three seats. This time contests in all these seats will be triangular as Congress and Trinamool Congress will field their candidates against each other. The BJP too has decided to contest the by-elections.