Known for her knack of being in the limelight by doing the unexpected, Banerjee walked a ramp at Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata on Sunday with the 42 women and men who included veterans like Sougata Roy and Sudip Bandopadhyay and greenhorns like Yusuf Pathan and Rachana Banerjee. Nearby on a podium, her nephew Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat nominee Abhishek Banerjee announced the names which prospective candidates and their supporters were all ears for.

The effort to bridge the subterranean differences between the two leaders were discernible. This was a takeaway from the candidate announcement rally.

Truth to tell, the announcement of the list of candidates has caught Banerjee's political rivals off balance. It has come at a time when the Opposition were patting themselves on the back thinking the arrest of Sandeshkhali strongman Sheikh Shahjahan on charges of land grabbing and sexual exploitation of some local women together with some of his henchmen alleged to be hand in gloves in the alleged acts followed by resignation of a former judge of Calcutta High Court Avijit Gangopadhyay and his joining BJP.

Gangopadhyay whose name is being written as a prospective BJP candidate in Tamluk will be taking on TMC's Debangshu Bhattacharya. A war of words is being looked forward as Bhattacharya as party spokesman has often sharply criticised Gangopadhyay's judgement on television talk shows.

A more than cursory look at the candidates list of Trinamool Congress reveals that it was indeed a brainstorming session for TMC leadership which sought a judicious combination of youth and experience to bring it out. If the TMC evolved in the late 90's out of Mamata Banerjee's will to break away from Congress, the list of 2024 Lok Sabha elections candidates too bear her stamp of approval.

Ruling out the whispering campaign of labelling seniors as deadwood, Sougata Roy, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Mala Roy, Kalyan Bandopadhyay and Kakali Ghosh Dastidar featured in the list of candidates. They retained their constituencies from which they had emerged victorious last year.

Both Sougata Roy and Sudip Bandopadhyay have been target of the barbs of the camp followers of Abhishek Banerjee. Baranagar MLA Tapas Roy, one of the most vocal critics of Bandopadhayay and an aspirant of nomination from Kolkata (north) left TMC to join BJP .

Manifestation of the wishes of the party's new face and the supremo's nephew Abhishek Banerjee were also unmistakable. Sayyoni Ghosh, Partha Bhoumik, Shahnaz Ali Raihan, Debangshu Bhattacharya are among the prominent nominees of his choice.

Bhoumik being fielded from Barrackpore constituency replaces Arjun Singh, the 2019 election winner who defected to the BJP only to return to his old party,. Barrackpore has been a trouble spot and Singh was accused of inciting intra,-party clashes which snow balled into law and order problems.

Trinamool leadership has chosen several former BJP leaders as Lok Sabha polls candidates. They are Shatrughan Sinha who won from Patna Sahib, Kirti Azad who won from Darbhanga, Raigunj MLA Krishna Kalyani, Mukutmani Adhikari from Ranaghat and Sujata Mondal will take on her estranged husband Soumitra Khan, the sitting MP of Bishnupur.

Fielding both Sinha and Azad in Asansol Durgapur belt to woo a largely non-Bengali vote bank as both being from Bihar is a smart move on the part of TMC leadership. While Sinha a popular film hero of yesteryears is already the sitting MP of Asansol, Azad, a member of Kapil Dev-led cricket team which won the 1983 World Cup has also played cricket in the SAIL cricket team in Durgapur and Burnpur.

Rachana Banerjee, Yusuf Pathan and Shahnaz Ali Raihan will try their beginner's luck in this election. Known for his big hitting skills which fetched several victories for the Indian cricket team Pathan will take on Congress's Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury at Behrampore, a Muslim majority constituency where Chowdhury has been winning since 1999 Lok Sabha elections.

Trinamool is banking Pathan's popularity and Chowdhury's victory reduced margin in 2019 elections and a rise in the percentage of its own votes. Pathan may bring off an upset as of the seven Assembly segments of this Lok Sabha, six have been won by Trinamool nominees while a BJP nominee emerged victorious in Behrampore Assembly constituency.

Banerjee, who hosts a popular television show Didi number one in which chief minister Mamata Banerjee appeared on March 3 will take on another actress and sitting BJP MP of Hooghly Locket Chatterjee in Hoogly seat.

A known face in Bengali, Odia and south Indian films, Banerjee is a very familiar face to the people as her show has been running uninterruptedly for a decade. Raihan, a Oxford scholar and a former journalist has been pitted against Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury brother of late Congress leader ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury from Malda (South).

Raihan first came to limelight after participating in a demonstration against CAA before Indian High Commission in London. On 11 March BJP-led NDA government operationalised the amended citizenship rules.

With 18 Lok Sabha seats in their bag from 2019 elections and an impressive showing in 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP would have been a redoubtable political opponent to TMC in this election. Yet dismal poll performances post 2021 elections made it appear like a spent force.

But the happenings of Sandeshkhali followed by the resignation of a sitting judge of Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay and his joining the BJP have put a new wind in the saffron camp's sails. The judgements of Gangopadhyay when he was hearing cash for teaching jobs and other corruption matters will be campaign fodder for the Opposition camp.

Given TMC announcing its 42 candidates unilaterally, the INDIA alliance has floundered in West Bengal. A three-way contest appears to be on the cards in this state between TMC, BJP and a Left-Congress combine. Essentially, the fight will be between TMC and the BJP, the Congress-Left combine playing a marginal role. As of now, TMC has still an edge but two months are still left, and the BJP will make every effort to snatch seats from TMC. The battle in Bengal will have all the signs of 2021 fierce fighting in state assembly polls. (IPA Service)