Rekha Patra, who virtually became the face of the movement by Sandeshkhali women, will be the BJP candidate from the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, as per the party’s fifth list announced on Sunday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced the second list of candidates for 19 constituencies in West Bengal, throwing many surprises both in terms of selection of new candidates and re-nomination of sitting candidates from different constituencies.

The BJP has so far announced the names of candidates for 38 out of 42 constituencies in West Bengal.

Candidates for four constituencies, namely Diamond Harbour, Asansol, Birbhum and Jhargram are yet to be announced by the BJP.

As expected by many, former judge of Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay has been fielded from Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency in East Midnapore.

His contestants in the constituency are Trinamool Congress’ Debangshu Bhattacharya and CPI-M’s Sayan Banerjee.

Similarly, six-time Trinamool Congress legislator Tapas Roy, who recently resigned from his membership in the state assembly and joined BJP, has been fielded from Kolkata-Uttar Constituency.

While Trinamool Congress has re-nominated its sitting MP Sudip Bandopadhyay from there, the Left Front-supported Congress candidate in that constituency is former party Rajya Sabha member Pradip Bhattacharya. For Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas district, the BJP has nominated Arjun Singh, who is also the sitting MP from that constituency.

He got elected as a BJP candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Barrackpore and in 2022, he joined the Trinamool Congress.

However, as the ruling party did not nominate him from Barrackpore this time, he went back to BJP again and got nominated.

The surprise change in place of nomination was that of the party’s former national vice-president and state president in West Bengal Dilip Ghosh, who is the sitting BJP Lok Sabha member from Medinipur constituency.

Dilip Ghosh, this time, was nominated from Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency in West Burdwan district replacing the sitting party Lok Sabha member from there, S.S. Ahluwalia.

Fashion designer-turned-politician and BJP legislator from Asansol (South) Assembly constituency Agnimitra Paul is the party candidate from Medinipur.

The surprise candidate for the BJP was for the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency in North 24 Parganas district, which includes Sandeshkhali which had been in the national news over the movement of the local people against alleged violence and sexual harassment of local women there by a section of the local leaders of Trinamool Congress.

(This article has been published via a syndicated feed)