Bhaichung Bhutia, idol Dev, Moon Moon Sen, Satabdi Roy to contest on Trinamool ticket

Reigning Bengali matinee idol Dev, film personalities Moon Moon Sen and Satabdi Roy, and former Indian soccer skipper Bhaichung Bhutia figure in the list of Trinamool Congress candidates for the April-May Lok Sabha polls, party chief Mamata Banerjee announced Wednesday.

Bhutia will contest the election from Darjeeling, and Dev from Ghatal in West Midnapore district, as per the list which includes a number of renowned cultural personalities and non-political people.

Moon Moon, daughter of legendary Bengali heroine Suchitra Sen and herself a film actress, will be in fray from Bankura.

Sugata Bose, a grandson of great revolutionary Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and professor at Harvard University, has been named the party nominee from Jadavpur. Bose’s mother Krishna had won the polls from the same constituency thrice consecutively in 1996, 1998 and 1999.

Soumitra Roy, a lead singer of popular Bengali band Bhoomi, is being fielded from Malda North constituency in Malda district.

Theatre personality Arpita Ghosh has bagged the Trinamool ticket from Balurghat in South Dinajpur district.

In Midnapore, the Trinamool candidate is veteran Bengali actress Sandhya Roy.

Eminent singer Indranil Sen would try his luck from Berhampore in Murshidabad district, from where the Congress is likely to again field its state chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Banerjee also announced that Bengali matinee idols and sitting MPs Satabdi Roy and Tapas Pal have been renominated from Birbhum and Krishnanagar constituencies respectively.

Former Indian soccer captain Prasun Banerjee, who won the Howrah Lok Sabha seat in a bypoll last year, has got the renomination from the same seat.

Banerjee’s nephew and Trinamool Yuva president Abhishek Bandopadhyay would fight the elections from Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas. In the previous election (2009), veteran leader Somen Mitra had won the seat on Trinamool ticket, but switched over to the Congress recently.

In Raiganj of North Dinapur district, ailing Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi’s brother Satyaranjan Dasmunshi would be pitted as a Trinamool candidate. Raiganj is now represented by P R Dasmunshi’s wife Deepa, regarded as a staunch critic of the Trinamool chief.

Trinamool, which had won 19 of the 42 seats from the state in the 2009 elections, has fielded 11 women candidates this time.

“Of the 42 seats in Bengal, we are fielding 11 women candidates which perhaps is the highest. Seven candidates are from the minority community,” said Banerjee at a crowded media meet at the her residence in south Kolkata’s Kalighat.

Inputs by IANS