After Workers Protest, BJP Replaces Candidate From Bengal’s Alipurduar

Kolkata:

The BJP at present pulled out its candidate, the previous Chief Financial Advisor Ashok Lahiri, from the Alipurduar seat in north Bengal after intense protests from the native occasion supporters who described him as an “outsider”. Named within the first listing of the occasion, Mr Lahiri was changed with native strongman Suman Kanjilal within the listing launched at present.  Mr Lahiri, sources mentioned, is anticipated to be among the many final tranche of candidates fielded by the BJP.

The occasion is but to announce candidates for 5 seats — Balurghat, Rashbehari, Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong.

Sources informed NDTV that Mr Lahiri was pulled out of the Alipurduar seat in north Bengal as there was a battle of caste pursuits. He’ll almost definitely be fielded from Balurghat within the South Dinajpur district.

Mr Lahiri’s candidature was a lot publicized by the BJP, which has been fielding eminent residents and credible city Bengali faces in hopes of receiving assist from the state’s intelligentsia and eliminating the “outsider” tag bestowed on it by the Trinamool Congress. Thus far, the occasion has named a number of artistes, a scientist and 5 MPs, one in every of them being Union Minister Babul Supriyo.

The occasion, nevertheless, bumped into hassle with its native employees after it fielded leaders who modified camp from the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress.

On Monday, protests broke out at a number of locations, together with its election workplace in Kolkata, the place police lastly used batons to regulate the scenario.

Offended supporters had gathered on the occasion’s election workplace the place they heckled senior leaders Mukul Roy, Arjun Singh and Shiv Prakash. They have been joined by protestors from Howrah’s Udaynarayanpur.

Within the night, crowds poured in from Raidighi in South 24 Parganas. Agitated BJP employees ransacked the occasion workplace at Singur and the BJP’s district headquarters workplace at Chinsura — each in Hooghly district.

The BJP had referred to as it a “short-term scenario” however was compelled to vary the candidate in Alipurduar, a part of its stronghold in north Bengal.

Mr Lahiri was a member of the fifteenth Finance Fee and had labored with former finance ministers Yashwant Sinha and P Chidambaram.