Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today pitched five women and four candidates belonging to minority communities against the ruling CPM as she released the list of her party’s candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

After sealing the TMC-Congress seat-sharing deal, Banerjee urged all regional parties not to join the Third Front with the CPM.

Welcoming the Congress’ decision to contest 14 Lok Sabha seats, Banerjee said, “We will fight together to bring an end to the 32-year misrule of the CPM. People wanted us to fight together and we have their wishes.”

While she herself will contest from her old Kolkata South seat, the recently expelled Congress MLA, Sudip Banerjee, will fight for the Kolkata North seat.

The TMC chief has fielded five of her sitting MLAs. While Sougata Roy will contest from Dum Dum, MLAs Tapas Pal, Ratna De Nag, Sisir Adhikary and Subhendu Adhikary will fight for Krishnanagar, Hooghly, Kanthi and Tamluk seats respectively. Another expelled Congress MLA, Somen Mitra, will contest the Diamond Harbour seat.

The TMC list also has seven candidates from the SC and one from ST communities. “If you consider me, we have five woman candidates,” she said.

Banerjee has also fielded Tollywood stars like Shatabdi Roy and Tapas Paul in Birbhum and Krishnanagar respectively. Singer Kabir Suman will contest from Jadavpur while theatre personality Ashok Biswas is in the fray from Burdwan East.

The list also contains names of C M Jatua, a former IPS officer, who will contest in Mathurapur, and Dipak Ghosh, a former IAS officer who will fight for Midnapore seat. Educationist Sucharu Halder will contest from Ranaghat.

... contd.