Bengal BJP announces candidates for Kolkata civic polls

The Bengal BJP on Monday announced its list of candidates for the upcoming Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).

This comes while a petition filed by a state BJP leader is in Calcutta High Court and seeks court directive to the state election commission and the state for holding elections simultaneously in all municipal bodies in the state. The state election commission has notified December 19 as the date of the election for Kolkata.

The party announced names for all the 144 seats that constitute Kolkata municipal area. Around 50 young faces figure in the list, there are around 50 women candidates, five advocates, four doctors, four academicians - teachers, professors, and around 21 who represent the business community, students.

Also read: Left, ‌Congress‌ ‌to contest Kolkata civic polls separately

Addressing a press conference at the party's office in Kolkata, state party leaders claimed that candidates have been selected to represent all sections of society. While there are Muslim candidates on the list, the state BJP has said that the party is not classifying its candidates on a religious basis which it considers divisive politics. The party has also claimed that it had decided the candidates much earlier.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress, the Left Front, and the Congress Party, all have declared their candidates for the polls. On Saturday, the Congress Party came out with a first list, and then with a second on Sunday. This happened after its ally Left declared its own list unilaterally without consulting the Congress and left around 17 seats for its partners who fought the last assembly elections with it.

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