BJP's 4th Bengal list: Union minister's wife, ex-Congress leader among 13 candidates

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like Kolkata: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday named 13 more candidates in its fourth list for the West Bengal assembly polls in April, fielding Union minister of state and Dalit Matua community leader Shantanu Thakur's wife Soma Thakur, and a sitting Congress councillor from Kolkata. Soma Thakur will contest North 24 Parganas district's Bagdah (SC) seat. (Photo: FB/@somathakur03)With this, BJP has named 287 candidates for the race to the 294-member state assembly. Tuesday's list, featuring only one woman, Soma Thakur, and three Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates, came days after the BJP named 274 nominees in three lists published in phases since March 16. In the two-phase polls to be held on April 23 and 29, Soma Thakur will contest North 24 Parganas district's Bagdah (SC) seat, a Matua stronghold, on the second date against her cousin-in-law and outgoing MLA Mahuparna Thakur, the Trinamool Congress nominee and daughter of the ruling party's Rajya Sabha member Mamata Bala Thakur. "People have made up their minds. BJP will win not only Bagdah but the majority of the seats in West Bengal," Soma Thakur said after her name was announced. BJP's Biswas Das won the Bagdah seat in 2021 but later joined the TMC without resigning from BJP. Madhuparna Thakur won the seat in a 2024 by-election held after Das resigned to unsuccessfully contest the Lok Sabha polls against Shantanu Thakur. The Union minister's brother, Subrata Thakur, won the district's Gaighata assembly seat in 2021 and is seeking re-election. Santosh Pathak, the only Congress councillor in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, joined the BJP on March 23 amid speculations that he might be fielded in the assembly elections. "BJP is the only party that can end the corrupt TMC government," said Pathak, who will contest for Kolkata's Chowringhee seat which Nayna Bandopadhyay, wife of TMC Lok Sabha member Sudip Bandopadhyay, won in a 2014 bypoll, and in 2016 and 2021.