Kolkata: Just days after Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik decided to field 33 per cent women candidates for the 21 Lok Sabha seats from the State, his counterpart in Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, fielded 40.5 per cent women candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha seats of which Mamata has reserved 17 for women TMC candidates.
Ten current parliamentarians have been dropped in the list Mamata announced on Tuesday. Notable ones who have been given tickets are Bengali celebrities like Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, reigning stars of the Kolkata film industry.
Among those not in the list are Harvard University professor and eminent historian Sugato Bose and Tapas Pal, who was lodged at Jharpada jail in Bhubaneswar after his arrest by the CBI in the ponzi chit fund case.
Bengali actor Dipak Adhikari (Dev) would seek re-election from Ghatal Constituency.
From Howrah, the Trinamool has re-nominated Arjuna awardee and former Indian football captain Prasun Banerjee.
Veteran actor Moon Moon Sen will this time contest from Asansol, instead of Bankura where she had defeated veteran parliamentarian Basudev Acharya. She is most likely to lock horns with current Asansol MP and Union minister Babul Supriyo.
Mamata has also announced that she will field candidates in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Assam. In Odisha, the TMC will field candidates in Bhubaneswar and Bhadrakh, she said.
