Congress announces 284 candidates for West Bengal Assembly polls, fields Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

The Congress announced candidates for 284 of the 294 West Bengal Assembly constituencies, fielding senior leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from Baharampur and several prominent faces, as the party prepares to contest independently after severing ties with the Left Front.

Kolkata: All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Sunday announced party candidates for 284 of the 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal, which will vote in two phases next month.

As expected, the party has nominated the former state Congress president in West Bengal and five-time party Lok Sabha member, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, from the Baharampur Assembly constituency in his native district of Murshidabad.

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The former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member, Mausam Benazir Noor, who had recently returned to Congress, had been nominated as the party candidate from Malatipur Assembly constituency in her native district of Malda.

Ali Imran Ramz, aka Victor, who had been recently accused of domestic violence by his estranged wife, has been fielded from Chakulia Assembly constituency in north Dinajpur.

Victor was a two-time All India Forward Bloc legislator from Chakulia, first from 2011 to 2016 and then from 2016 to 2021. However, he was defeated in the 2021 Assembly elections.

He joined Congress before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and also became a party candidate from the Raiganj Lok Sabha elections. However, he lost.

Rohon Mitra, the son of former state Congress president in West Bengal, late Somendra Nath Mitra, has been nominated from Ballygunge Assembly constituency in South Kolkata.

Congress and Left Front started contesting with a seat-sharing agreement since the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections, which continued till the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In 2021, neither Congress nor the Left Front could send a single representative to the state Assembly.

However, this time, the Congress decided to sever ties with the Left Front and instead contest independently from all the 294 Assembly constituencies, and on Sunday, they announced candidates for 284 Assembly constituencies.

At the time the report was filed, there was no indication from the Congress leadership on when the candidates for the remaining 10 Assembly constituencies would be announced.