Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced Tuesday a list of TMC candidates for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats of the state, dropping 10 sitting MPs.
She also attacked the BJP and the Modi government, while claiming she had information that ‘VVIPs’ were using helicopters and chartered flights to transport money to bribe voters.
Releasing the list, the West Bengal leader assailed the Centre over a host of issues including the Rafale deal, farm distress and shrinking employment opportunities.
Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, said the outgoing TMC lawmakers whose names do not figure in the list will be drafted for party work. She informed that 41 per cent of the nominees in the list are women.
The TMC, she said, will also contest some seats in Odisha, Assam, Jharkhand, Bihar and the Andamans.
The sitting MPs who were dropped by Mamata this time include senior leaders like Subrata Bakshi, Idris Ali and actor tapas Paul, who was behind bars for a long in a Bhubaneswar jail while being investigated for his role in Saradha scam. Two others, had already been suspended by the party and had joined the BJP a few days back.
The TMC supremo, like always, has sprung a surprise by nominating film actors Mimi Chakrabarty and Nusrat Jahan to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
PTI