High-Voltage Polls To Be Witnessed, Suvendu Adhikari To Battle Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Election 2021: The BJP's CEC met to finalise party candidates for the initial phases of assembly polls in West Bengal and Assam, two of the four states going to the elections besides the union territory of Puducherry.

Outlook Web Bureau

Updated on: 5 March 2021 10:31 am

One of the high-profile contests in the high-stakes Bengal polls is likely to be a direct fight between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her former confidant and now BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat.

The other candidate discussed in the meeting held to finalise names for initial rounds of voting was Babul Supriyo, the BJP's Asansol MP.

Sources say the Union Minister volunteered his name for Bhowanipore, the second seat that Mamata Banerjee is likely to contest in the assembly election that will stretch over eight rounds and 33 days.

The BJP's central election committee (CEC) met on Thursday to finalise party candidates for the initial phases of assembly polls in West Bengal and Assam, two of the four states going to the elections besides the union territory of Puducherry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and party president J P Shah along with other members of the committee held deliberations at the BJP headquarters here.

Party sources said the CEC may clear the names of the candidates for most of the seats in the two states where elections will be held in the first two phases on March 27 and April 1.

While the third and last phase of polling in Assam will be held on April 6, West Bengal is scheduled to undergo elections in eight phases ending on April 29.

The BJP has high stakes in West Bengal and Assam. In Bengal, it has mounted an aggressive, all-out campaign, deploying a number of leaders drawn from various states and considered adept in poll campaigning, to end the 10-year-old reign of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

In Assam, where the party came to power for the first time in 2016, the BJP has been pulling out all the stops to retain power, with the Congress joining hands with regional parties to capture its old bastion.

Before the CEC meeting, top BJP leaders like Shah and Nadda have held long deliberations with Assam party leaders, including Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and minister Himanta Biswa Sharma, and those from Bengal, including state party chief Dilip Ghosh.