Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Sunday announced names of 66 women and 20 minority candidates for the election to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation which is due in the third week of April.
Announcing the names for all 144 wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), West Bengal Panchayat and Public Health Engineering minister Subrata Mukherjee said that party chief Mamata Banerjee had formed a scrutiny committee to select the candidates which had been approved by her.
"There are 66 women candidates and 20 candidates from the minority community. No other party has ever fielded so many women and minority candidates for the KMC elections," Mukherjee said.
He said that incumbent Sobhan Chattopadhyay would be the party's choice for the mayoral post again.
In fact, the party made little changes in the seats held by the sitting members, except for sitting Congress councillors Mala Roy and Arun Das who joined the ruling party only yesterday.
However, the party fielded some new faces from outside politics, including former Indian football team player Shyamal Banerjee and television journalist Sudarshana Mukherjee.
"We believe that with the kind of work we have done in the past five years, we will easily win. No other city has been able to give so much civic amenities, including regular water supply, street lighting and beautification of the banks of the Ganga like the Thames in London," he said.
