WATCH | Mamata Banerjee kickstarts TMC's Lok Sabha campaign in Kolkata

TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched her party's Lok Sabha campaign at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata today. In a video shared by news agency ANI, Banerjee was seen walking and waving to her supporters as loud pro-TMC music played in the background.

The TMC Supremo released the list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls that included many high-profile names including former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Banerjee and Mahuao Moitra. 

Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of CM is all set to defend his Diamond Harbour seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024. The other candidates on the list include Gopal Lama from Darjeeling, Nirmal Chandra Roy from Jalpaiguri, Pratima Mondal from Joynagar, Bapi Haldar from Mathurapur etc. Meanwhile, Expelled TMC MP will again contest the Lok Sabha election from the Krishnanagar seat.

The announcement of the candidates by TMC on all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal is a major setback for the INDIA bloc. Earlier, Mamata Banerjee declared that she will go solo in West Bengal, but Congress sources had revealed that the talks were still on.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has reacted to TMC making the announcement regarding the candidate list, saying "The Indian National Congress has repeatedly declared its desire to have a respectable seat-sharing agreement with the TMC in West Bengal. The Indian National Congress has always maintained that such an agreement has to be finalized through negotiations and not by unilateral announcements. The Indian National Congress has always wanted the INDIA group to fight the BJP together," 

In the last Lok Sabha election held in 2019, TMC had won 22 of the 42 seats in the state while Bhartiya Janta Party had napped