West Bengal: Left Front announces 16 candidates, says still open to talks with Congress

Only CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakraborty from Dumdum and CPI’s Biplab Bhatta from Midnapore are the old faces.

Announcing the names of the candidates, Left Front Chairman Biman Bose said that while CPI(M) is contesting 13 seats, Forward Bloc, CPI and RSP have been allotted one seat each. Forward Bloc’s Nitish Chandra Roy has been named as the Left Front’s candidate from Cooch Behar and RSP leader Joydev Siddhanta from Balurghat.

There are three women candidates from CPI(M) — Saira Shah Halim from Kolkata (South), Dipsita Dhar from Srirampore, and Jamuria Jahanara Khan from Asansol.

Former CPI(M) MLA S M Sadi has been fielded from Krishnanagar.

Left Front Chairman Biman Bose in Kolkata, Thursday. (Express photo: Partha Paul)

Two advocates of the Calcutta High Court — Sayan Banerjee and Sabyasachi Chatterjee – have been fielded from Tamluk and Howrah, respectively. The other new faces of CPI(M) are Srijan Bhattacharya (Jadavpur), Debraj Burman (Jalpaiguri), Monodip Ghosh (Hooghly), Nilanjan Dasgupta (Bankura), Shital Kaibarta (Bishnupur) and Nirab Khan (Burdwan Purba).

On seat-sharing talks with the Congress, Biman Bose said: “We never said Congress tafat jao (Congress stay away).

If the Congress wants to have seat adjustment, we have no problem. Let them finish their talks with senior leaders. We will sit again and discuss.”

State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury, on the other hand, also expressed hope for seat adjustments with the Left Front. “Our central leadership will decide on it. We had talks with the CPI(M) and if possible, we can again sit with them.”

Sources in the CPI(M) said that the names of the candidates have been announced for those seats on which they had no talks with the Congress. “We are ready to do seat adjustment with the Congress but their central leadership is still fumbling even after the TMC announced its candidates for all the 42 seats. We can wait for them for two to three more days, but cannot wait for an indefinite period,” a senior CPI(M) leader said.