Mamata Banerjee to contest 2021 Bengal polls from Nandigram

Addressing a rally in Nandigram, Banerjee said, "I would request Subrata Bakshi to allow me to contest from Nandigram."

Bakshi, who is the state president of the ruling Trinamool Congress, immediately accepted Banerjee's proposal and announced her candidature.

Banerjee might also fight from her current constituency Bhawanipore as a second seat. 

"I might also fight from Bhawanipore. But it is sure I will be fighting from Nandigram," the Trinamool Congress supremo said. 

The Nandigram seat was won by Suvendu Adhikari, who is now a BJP leader, as a Trinamool candidate in the 2016 assembly polls. 

Before joining the BJP in Dec, 2020, Adhikari had resigned as the MLA. 

Banerjee's announcement came in the backdrop of Adhikari's repeated attacks on the CM and the Trinamool top brass for allegedly running the state from south Kolkata, an urban locality. 

"A handful of people from south Kolkata are dictating people of the villages," Adhikari had said in several rallies, accusing the CM of centralisation of power. 

Banerjee, who became the Bhawanipore MLA through a by-election in 2011, was re-elected to the seat by around 25,000 votes five years later. 

In a vield attack on Adhikari and the BJP from Monday's rally in Nandigram, the Trinamool chief said, "BJP has become a washing powder which transforms all black into white. Any tainted person who joins the BJP turns honest." 

However, the BJP, which is aiming to unseat the Trinamool, has referred to Banerjee's announcement of candidature as an act of "nervousness". 

"Mamata Banerjee’s decision to shift seat from Bhowanipore to Nandigram, for the first time in 10 years, indicates her political nervousness...

Will she explain why IPS Satyajit Bandopadhyay, chargesheeted by CBI for firing on protesting farmers in Nandigram, was inducted in TMC?" BJP's co-incharge of West Bengal, Amit Malviya, tweeted.