Kolkata: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday announced its third list of 19 candidates for the forthcoming two-phase Assembly elections in West Bengal next month, with the most prominent name being Ratna Debnath, fielded from the Panihati Assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas district.
Debnath is the mother of the junior doctor of state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata who was raped and murdered within the hospital premises in August 2024.
She is also a voter from the same constituency.
From Panihati, the Trinamool Congress has fielded Tirthankar Ghosh, son of sitting MLA and the current Chief Whip of the Trinamool Congress legislative party in the West Bengal Assembly, Nirmal Ghosh, whose name had figured in controversy over alleged arrangements for a hurried cremation of the victim’s body.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist, on the other hand, has fielded its youth leader Kalatan Dasgupta, one of the prominent faces of the movement against the incident.
With the third list announced on Wednesday, the BJP has so far declared candidates for 174 of the total 294 Assembly constituencies in the state.
It may be recalled that on March 23, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, had informed media persons that the parents of the R.G. Kar victim had taken primary membership of the BJP.
However, Adhikari had then said that whether any of them would be fielded as a candidate from Panihati would be decided by the party’s central leadership. On Wednesday, the party announced the name of the victim’s mother as its candidate from the constituency.
It may be recalled that the body of the victim was recovered from within the R.G. Kar hospital premises on the morning of August 9, 2024. The Kolkata Police had initially investigated the case and arrested Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer, as the sole accused.
Subsequently, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe following an order of the Calcutta High Court and also identified Roy as the sole accused in the rape and murder case.
A trial court in Kolkata later convicted Roy and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The CBI has challenged the order before the Calcutta High Court, seeking the death penalty.
(I
