Lok Sabha polls 2019: Shiv Sena to contest in West Bengal for the first time, releases list of 11 candidates

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena party on Thursday announced that they would contest the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.

As per reports, this would be the first time Shiv Sena would be fighting the polls in TMC chief Mamata Banerjee's turf. The party has released a list of 11 candidates for the parliamentary polls in West Bengal. 

It will field its candidates from Tamluk, Contai, North Bengal, Medinipur, Purulia, Barrackpore, Bankura, Barashat, Bishnupur, North Malda and Jadavpur. Party's Bengal Unit also released the list of their candidates for all the seats.

Claiming that BJP in West Bengal has taken in all the tainted leaders of the TMC, Shiv Sena' state General-Secretary Ashok Sarkar said that he will contest from Medinipur seat.

Others contesting are Satadel Metya, Keshab Ram Mishra, Mousami Das, Srabanti Das, Bani Chakraborty, Sumit Das, Tirtha Goswami, Jayanta Kumar Paul, Joydeb Roy, Sourav Sarkar. In 2016 state assembly election, the Shiv Sena had contested 18 seats but failed to make an impact.

READ: Lok Sabha Elections 2019: BJP-Shiv Sena Finalise Poll Campaign Strategy For Maharashtra; To Hold Six Mega Rallies Together

Meanwhile, BJP released its list of candidates for West Bengal on March 21, naming grand nephew of Subhash Chandra Bose, Chandra Kumar Bose to fight from the South Kolkata seat, He was further named as the face of BJP in the Mamata Banerjee-led state. 

Some of the other names are:

• Maldaha Uttar - Khagen Murmu
• Maldaha Dakshin- Sreerupa Mitra Choudhury 
• Krishnanagar- Kalyan Chowbey
• Barrackpur- Arjun Singh
• Dum Dum- Samik Bhattacharya

Prior to BJP's list, Trinamool Congress (TMC) released its list of candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, shuffling around half the incumbents and dropping eight sitting members of Parliament (MPs). About 41 per cent of the women candidates were selected in the list.

West Bengal with its 42 Lok Sabha seats is going to poll in all seven phases starting on April 11. The result of the 2019 polls will be declared on May 23 with the counting of votes to take place on the same day.

READ: BJP'S FIRST LIST OUT: BJP Releases First List Of 182 Candidates For 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. Here It Is