KOLKATA: Ahead of Assembly polls in Bengal, the BJP on Wednesday announced the third list of candidates, including Ratna Debnath, mother of the raped and murdered victim of the state government-run R G Kar Medical College Hospital in Kolkata.
Nominees for the remaining 19 assembly seats will be announced by the BJP soon. The saffron party nominated candidates in 275 of 294 assembly seats in the State so far.
The party leadership in Delhi announced candidates for seats, including Cooch Behar Dakshin, Raiganj, Islampur, Hemtabad, English Bazar, Santipur, Panihati, Howrah Madhya, Uttarpara, Singur, Chandannagar, Chunchura, Haripal, Tamluk, Medinipur, Katwa, Purbasthali Dakshin, Sainthia and Nalhati.
Debnath, expressing her desire to contest elections with a BJP ticket, joined the party on Tuesday in Kolkata. She will contest the battle from Panihati constituency in North 24 Parganas district against Trinamool Congress and CPI-M.
“The proposal had come repeatedly, but initially I did not agree,” she had told reporters last week when the party leadership was considering to give her a ticket.
“Finally, I decided to become a candidate to uproot the TMC due to growing atrocities against women and the lack of safety for them. My decision also comes after witnessing how the CPM used my daughter’s case politically to strengthen its base and help the TMC win by cutting votes.”
“The Left Front lost power after 34 years of rule, but it played a major role in keeping the TMC in power by splitting anti-TMC votes,” the victim’s father had told the media.
Kalatan Dasgupta is the CPM candidate from Panihati.
CPM state secretary Md Salim, while reacting to her decision to join BJP, had said the party had no conflict with the victims' parents but urged them to remain non-partisan.
“We were the ones who went to court.… The Trinamool Congress and the police were trying to flee with the body, and young leaders Minakshi (Mukherjee), Kalatan (Dasgupta) and Dhrubajyoti (Saha) blocked the vehicle,” he had claimed.
Her daughter, a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee, was raped and murdered at night inside her workplace, RG Kar campus in August 2024.
A locally influential civic volunteer was handed a life term in January 2025. The atrocity had triggered people’s outrage, including the medical fraternity, which led to largely spontaneous street protests across the country, drawing international attention.
Another prominent candidate, Dipanjan Chakraborty, a former NSG personnel, has been fielded in Uttarpara in Hooghly district, where Trinamool Congress nominated Sirsannyo Banerjee, son of the ruling party MP Kalyan Banerjee.
CPI-M has pitted its young women leader Meenakshi Mukherjee from the same seat.
