Prashant Kishor eyes KMC elections; TMC released the list of 144 candidate, 64 women nominated

New Delhi: Ahead of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections, the ruling TMC on Friday (November 26) released a list of 144 candidates.

After a three-hour brainstorming session with election strategist Prashant Kishor and TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s residence, the TMC announced the full list of candidates late in the evening.

TMC got 126 seats in the 2015 KMC elections. This time Banerjee’s party has decided to drop the 39 sitting councillors.

“In the last KMC election, we had won 126 seats. Out of them, 87 candidates have been re-nominated for the upcoming elections and 39 have been dropped. Out of the 87, 78 candidates from their own wards and six others have changed their wards.” TMC Lok Sabha Party leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said.

Bandyopadhyay also said that TMC plans to increase female representation and thus 64 women candidates have been nominated.

“Out of 144 candidates, 64 are women. This means that the representation of women in the candidate list is around 45 per cent. We retained representation from all sections of the society. In our list, 19 are from the scheduled castes and 23 are from the minority communities .23, there are two Christians,” he said.

Meanwhile, the CPI(M)-led Left Front released the names of its 114 candidates, leaving 17 seats for the Congress and ISF for the upcoming 144-ward KMC elections.