BJP fields RG Kar victim’s mother for Bengal elections

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday (March 25) cleared all doubts by officially fielding Ratna Debnath, the mother of the doctor student, who was brutally raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata in August 2024, for the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.

She will contest from Panihati, a bastion of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), in North 24 Parganas district in southern Bengal.

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The saffron party, which is aiming to topple the TMC from power in these elections, picked Ratna's name in a list of 19 candidates for the two-phase elections in the state scheduled for April 23 and 29. With this, the BJP has now announced candidates for 274 seats, with 19 more to go. In one seat in Purulia district, the party has decided to support the candidate of a tribal body which is opposed to the TMC.

The announcement of fielding Ratna also came on the day the BJP's national president, Nitin Nabin, was in Kolkata to address a party event.

Bengal has a 294-member strong legislative assembly, and to form the government, a party or alliance has to secure 148 seats.

Speculation was rife about the victim's mother, both bereaved by her daughter's death and aggrieved by an alleged injustice meted out to the family, contesting this election.

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She also told reporters recently that she was keen to fight on a BJP ticket. They also took the party's basic membership, sources in the state BJP said. The state unit also said earlier that the final decision on candidature for elections is taken from the party headquarters in New Delhi. On Wednesday, it was confirmed that the central leadership gave its approval.

BJP releases third list, names Singur candidate

The latest list of the BJP, its third for the state, includes names for constituencies such as Cooch Behar Dakshin (South), Raiganj, Islampur, Hemtabad, English Bazar, Shantipur, Howrah Madhya (Central), Uttarpara, Chandannagore, Chuchura, Tamluk, Haripal, and others spread across the state.

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Arup Kumar Das was chosen as the party candidate from Singur in Hooghly district, adjoining state capital Kolkata, a place which has been politically symbolic, thanks to the ruckus that took place around the setting up of a Tata small car factory two decades ago, when the Left ruled Bengal.