The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) revealed its third list of 19 candidates for the upcoming two-phase Assembly elections in West Bengal. Among them is Ratna Debnath, who will contest from the Panihati Assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas district. Debnath, a voter from the same area, is known as the mother of the junior doctor who was tragically raped and murdered at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata in August 2024.
In contrast, the Trinamool Congress has nominated Tirthankar Ghosh from Panihati, the son of sitting MLA Nirmal Ghosh. Nirmal Ghosh, the current Chief Whip of the Trinamool Congress legislative party, was embroiled in controversy over the hurried cremation of the victim’s body. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India-Marxist has put forward Kalatan Dasgupta, a youth leader involved in the movement against the incident.
With this latest announcement, the BJP has now declared candidates for 174 out of the total 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal. Notably, the parents of the R.G. Kar victim had recently joined the BJP, as revealed by Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on March 23. The party’s decision to field the victim’s mother as a candidate from Panihati was confirmed on Wednesday.
The victim’s body was discovered within the R.G. Kar hospital premises on August 9, 2024. Initially, the Kolkata Police investigated the case and arrested Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer, as the sole accused. Subsequently, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe, identifying Roy as the sole accused in the rape and murder case. Roy was later convicted by a Kolkata trial court and sentenced to life imprisonment, a decision that the CBI has challenged, seeking the death penalty.
