Some singers also found place in the list. The TMC chief said that she had chosen “candidates from all walks of life to give a proper representation to Bengal”.
TMC, which had shared seats in alliance with Congress in the 2009 elections, had fought from 27 seats and the latter from 14 seats. It had left one seat to SUCI, a Leftist party opposed to the CPI (M).
Justifying her stand to fight the elections alone, she said, “People have wanted us to go it alone. We are happy that we won't have to see the political faces of the corrupt.” “We hope to win from all seats,” Banerjee said.
Bhutia, who hails from Namchi in Sikkim, would interestingly fight from Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, which the BJP's Jaswant Singh held with support from the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.
Banerjee also announced the names of TMC candidates for two Lok Sabha seats in Tripura, two in Jharkhand and two in Manipur.
Expressing her happiness at the five-phase election announced by the EC, she said, “It will take two months and seven days. But this will give me time to campaign in all places.”
However, she also mentioned that in some other large states like Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, elections would be held in one phase only.
“We respect the Election Commission. But we have seen that in Gujarat election is in one phase while in Tamil Nadu also it will be held in one phase,” she said adding “thanks to the EC, it will give us time to campaign.”
