The BJP has fielded lawyer Priyanka Tibrewal against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from the Bhawanipore assembly constituency in the upcoming by-poll.
The by-poll in Bhawanipore would be held on 30 September. Two other constituencies in Bengal namely Samserganj and Jangipur, both in Murshidabad district, would also go for the by-polls.
While the BJP has named Tibrewal against Banerjee, the Hindutva party has fielded Sujit Das from Jangipur and Milan Ghosh from Samserganj.
Mamata Banerjee has to win Bhawanipore to continue as the Bengal chief minister. The BJP had had to face a humiliating defeat in this year’s Bengal assembly polls as Mamata Banerjee’s party won more than 200 seats in the 295-seat state assembly. However, the Trinamool supremo had lost her own battle in Nandigram
Banerjee had left her safe seat of Bhawanipore to contest from Nandigram against her former aide Suvendu Adhikari. Banerjee has challenged the outcome of the Nandigram saying that she was first declared a winner before the polling officials changed the outcome.
BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari had moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s petition after the Calcutta High Court ordered to preserve EVMs used in Nandigram assembly seat in this year’s polls.
The Election Commission had recently announced that the by-poll in Kolkata’s Bhowanipore would be held on 30 September. The seat was earlier held by Mamata Banerjee, but the Trinamool supremo had left this constituency to contest from Nandigram in the last assembly polls. Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, who resigned from this seat to allow Banerjee to contest from here, had won the seat by a huge margin in this year’s assembly polls.