On this seat of West Bengal, husband and wife face to face after divorce, one will contest from BJP and the other from TMC

In Bengal, a divorced husband and wife are going to contest against each other from the same seat in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. Actually, this situation arose when Trinamool Congress released the list of its candidates on Sunday. The name of Sujata Mandal is also included in this list, who will contest from Bishnupur seat of Bankura district against her ex-husband Soumitra Khan.

Soumitra Khan is contesting from Bishnupur seat of Bengal on behalf of BJP. Now on Sunday, Trinamool has also fielded its candidate Sujata Mandal from the same seat. The couple had separated before the 2021 assembly elections in the state. Soumitra Khan had announced his divorce to Sujata on camera when she had joined Trinamool Congress.

Veteran leader of Bishnupur, Soumitra Khan had joined BJP from Trinamool before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At that time his wife had campaigned for him. Trinamool has announced its candidates for 42 seats in Bengal on March 10, making it clear that Mamata Banerjee has decided to contest the elections alone.

However, Congress is quite saddened by her decision because the party was hoping that Mamata Banerjee would once again talk about seat sharing before announcing the candidates in the state and reconsider relations with the INDIA alliance.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, posted on X "should be finalized through negotiations, not unilateral announcements".

Trinamool has removed at least eight sitting MPs and fielded several new faces like former cricketers Yusuf Pathan and Kirti Azad in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Yusuf Pathan will contest from Baharampur Lok Sabha seat against Trinamool's arch rival Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary. Ranjan Chaudhary, who won the seat five times, said that no political party should trust Mamata Banerjee.

"Mamata Banerjee fears that if she remains in the Bharat alliance, PM Modi will be unhappy," he said, underscoring her consistent view that the Trinamool Congress is the "B team" of the BJP.