The Hindu : Front Page : West Bengal polls: 8 Ministers do not figure in Left Front list

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 17, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

West Bengal polls: 8 Ministers do not figure in Left Front list

Special Correspondent

CPI(M) to contest 209 seats, AIFB 34, RSP 23 and CPI 13

POLL PLANK: Senior CPI (M) leaders Jyoti Basu and Biman Bose releasing party manifesto in Kolkata on Thursday for the coming West Bengal Assembly elections. — Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

KOLKATA: Eight Ministers of the West Bengal Government — seven belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one to the All India Forward Bloc — have been denied ticket for the upcoming Assembly polls in the State. In all 64 sitting MLAs belonging to the Left Front have not be renominated. There are 130 new faces in the list of candidates belonging to the Front, which has nominated 33 women candidates — the highest ever.

The total of number of seats up for grabs in the elections is 294.

The Ministers who do not figure in the list "are needed for strengthening the party organisation, given their seniority in politics," Chairman of the Left Front committee and member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, Biman Bose, said here on Thursday while releasing the list. He denied that their performance or lack of it had prompted the decision.

"We felt the need for a reshuffle so that some of our comrades can be further utilised for important work... We also want to add new blood [and believe] that renewal should always take place," Mr. Bose explained.

The highest number of seats to have been won by the Left Front is 251 "which it had won in the 1987 elections," Mr Bose said. "We intend to surpass that figure and our goal this time around is to win 260 and more."

Significantly none of the Ministers in the State's School and Higher Education departments in the present Left front Government has been renominated. Those not in the list and who hold portfolios in these departments are Satya Sadhan Chakraborty, the Higher Education Minister, Kanti Biswas, Minister for School Education, Nanda Rani Dal, Minister of State for Mass Education, and Iva Dey, Minister of State for School Education.

The others who do not figure in the list are Dinesh Dakua, Minister for Tourism, Nisith Adhikari, Minister for Law and Judicial Affairs, Nemai Mal, Minister for Library Services and Kamal Guha of the AIFB, the Agriculture Minister.

Many of the candidates who will be contesting in the coming elections for the first time are below 40 years of age.

Manifesto released

The Left Front's election manifesto was also released on the occasion.

"The central slogan is development and we intend to move and mobilise all for the development of West Bengal in all possible ways," Mr. Bose said. Campaigning for the elections would begin immediately, he said.

All the Left Front constituents have gone in for new faces in their lists of candidates.

The Front will be contesting in all 290 of the 294 seats, out which the share of the major parties is: the CPI(M) 209, AIFB 34, the Revolutionary Socialist Party 23, and the Communist Party of India 13.

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