Yusuf Path vs Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury ? TMC Announces Its 42 Candidates

Yusuf Pathan, the former Indian cricket team member, has been nominated as the Trinamool Congress candidate from Baharampur, a constituency historically dominated by the Congress and represented by its Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

While the Congress has yet to announce its candidates for Bengal, Chowdhury is expected to vie for re-election from the seat he has held 5 times now.

Commenting on the potential contest against Pathan, Chowdhury remarked that if the Trinamool wished to honor him, they should have nominated him for the Rajya Sabha.

He criticized the party for selecting Pathan as a candidate, accusing them of attempting to polarize the electorate and aid the BJP in defeating the Congress, suggesting that if Mamata Banerjee had genuine intentions, she would have sought a seat for Pathan in Gujarat through the alliance.

Mr. Chowdhury suggested, “Mamata Banerjee is apprehensive that staying within the INDIA alliance might displease Prime Minister Modi. By distancing herself from the alliance, she is conveying to the PMO, ‘I’m not opposing the BJP, please don’t be displeased with me’.”

The Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, unveiled its candidates for all 42 seats in Bengal today, confirming the absence of an alliance with non-BJP parties in the state.

While the Congress and Trinamool are nominally part of the INDIA alliance, there hasn’t been a concrete arrangement for seat-sharing in Bengal. Trinamool purportedly offered Baharampur and another seat to the Congress, but opted for independent candidacy as the Congress sought a larger share of seats.

Responding swiftly, the Congress reiterated its desire for a fair seat-sharing arrangement with the Trinamool in West Bengal.

On the other hand, Jairam Ramesh says, “The Indian National Congress has always maintained that it wants a respectable seat-sharing formula with the TMC in West Bengal. It means mutual negotiations, give and take, some compromise. We have always said that our doors are open for negotiations and seat-sharing talks but there should be no unilateral announcement of the seats, we should do it collectively together as we have done in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Delhi, UP, and so on…The TMC has announced, I don’t know what pressure was there on the TMC but as far as we are concerned we want to strengthen the INDIA alliance in West Bengal…So let’s see what happens.”