KOLKATA: The BJP on Tuesday released its fourth list of 13 candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls, fielding recent Congress entrant Santosh Pathak from Chowringhee and Union minister Shantanu Thakur's wife Soma from the Matua-dominated Bagda seat as it sought to fine-tune its social arithmetic and political messaging.
With only six seats left undeclared, the party named candidates for 13 more constituencies, taking the total number of nominees declared so far to 288 for the 294-member assembly.
Among the more politically significant picks was the candidature of Soma Thakur from Bagda in North 24 Parganas district, a Matua-dominated constituency. Soma is the wife of Bongaon MP and Union minister Shantanu Thakur, and her nomination is being seen as the BJP's latest attempt to consolidate the Matua vote bank ahead of an election in which the refugee community is once again expected to play a decisive role in several seats across southern Bengal.
In central Kolkata's Chowringhee seat, the BJP fielded Santosh Pathak, a five-time Congress councillor, who had joined the party only recently after quitting the Congress. His candidature underlined the BJP's continuing attempt to expand its footprint in urban pockets by drawing leaders from rival camps.
Pathak had formally joined the BJP in the presence of state president Samik Bhattacharya on March 23.
The other names announced on Tuesday included Ashutosh Barma from Sitai, Girija Shankar Roy from Natabari, Uttam Kumar Banik from Magrahat Purba, Debangshu Panda from Falta, Debashish Dhar from Sonarpur Uttar, Shyamal Hati from Howrah Dakshin, Ranjan Kumar Paul from Panchla, Piyushkanti Das from Chandipur, Pradip Lodha from Garbeta, Manab Guha from Memari and Arijit Roy from Bansdroni.
The nomination of former IPS officer Debashish Dhar from Sonarpur Uttar added another layer of political intrigue.
Dhar had earlier been fielded by the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls but could not contest after his nomination papers were rejected for failing to furnish a "no dues" certificate.
By giving him an assembly ticket this time, the BJP appears keen to revive a face that it had once projected as part of its broader attempt to draw retired bureaucrats and police officers into active politics.
The BJP also changed its nominee for Maynaguri. While the party had earlier named Kaushik Roy from the seat on March 19, it replaced him on Tuesday with Dalim Roy.
Tuesday's list marks the fourth and almost final round of BJP nominations in a state where the party is trying to convert the momentum it gained in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the political space created by anti-incumbency against the TMC into an organisationally coherent assembly challenge.
The BJP's first list, released on March 16, had contained 144 names and triggered the campaign's biggest surprise by fielding Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari from both Nandigram and Bhabanipur.
While Nandigram remains the constituency from where Adhikari had defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in 2021, Bhabanipur is Banerjee's own seat in Kolkata.
The BJP's decision to field Adhikari from both constituencies transformed the election into a direct and symbolic duel between the party's principal Bengal face and the TMC supremo.
The second list, announced on March 19, named 112 more candidates and reflected the BJP's continuing strategy of mixing celebrity faces, protest icons and defectors.
Among those fielded then were Sandeshkhali protest face Rekha Patra from Hingalganj, actor Roopa Ganguly from Sonarpur Dakshin and former Kolkata police commissioner Rajesh Kumar from Jagatdal.
The third list, released on March 25, carried perhaps the BJP's most emotionally charged candidature when it fielded the mother of the RG Kar hospital doctor who was raped and murdered last year from Panihati.
The move indicated the BJP's effort to keep alive the issue of women's safety and the outrage over the RG Kar case, which had triggered widespread protests across Bengal.
The fourth list released on Tuesday suggests that as the campaign enters its final stretch, the BJP is relying less on ideological messaging alone and more on a carefully calibrated combination of caste equations, local strongmen, celebrity appeal, emotional narratives and politically symbolic candidates.
In Bagda, it is banking on the Matua surname. In Chowringhee, it has chosen a recent defector. In Sonarpur Uttar, it has revived a former IPS officer whose electoral debut had collapsed before it began.
The party's message appears clear: every remaining constituency now matters, and every candidate is expected to carry a political signal beyond the boundaries of the seat from which he or she is contesting.
Polling for the West Bengal assembly elections will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, while votes will be counted on May 4.
The Trinamool Congress has already announced candidates for all 294 seats, and the nomination process for the constituencies going to the first phase of polling has already begun.
With only six seats still vacant in the BJP's roster, the final round of names is now less about arithmetic and more about what political message the party still wants to send before Bengal goes to the ballot box.
