Lok Sabha Elections: Aiming to throw a tough challenge to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Bharatiya Janata Party has announced names on 20 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state as it came out with the first list of 195 candidates Saturday. The announcement also comes amid the stalement between the TMC and the Congress over seat-sharing ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
In the names announced in the first list, the BJP has named 20 candidates. Prominent among them are BJP state president Sukanta Mazumdar (Balurghat), Nisith Pramanik (Cooch Behar), Subhas Sarkar (Bankura), Shantanu Thakur (Bongaon), Jagannath Sarkar (Ranaghat), Khagen Murmu (Maldah North), and Locket Chatterjee (Hooghly). Saumitra Khan (Bishnupur), and Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato (Purulia).
| Candidate | Seat | |
| 1. | Nisith Pramanik | Cooch Behar |
| 2. | Manoj Tigga | Alipurduars |
| 3. | Sukanta Majumdar | Balurghat |
| 4. | Khagen Murmu | Malda Uttar |
| 5. | Sreerupa Mitra Chowdhury | Malda Dakshin |
| 6. | Nirmal Kumar Saha | Baharampur |
| 7. | Gauri Shankar Ghosh | Murshidabad |
| 8. | Jagannath Sarkar | Ranaghat |
| 9. | Dr Anirban Ganguly | Jadavpur |
| 10. | Dr Ratim Chakraborty | Howrah |
| 11. | Locket Chatterjee | Hooghly |
| 12. | Soumendu Adhikari | Kanthi |
| 13. | Hiranmay Chattopadhyay | Ghatal |
| 14. | Jyotirmay Singh Mahato | Purulia |
| 15. | Shubash Sarkar | Bankura |
| 16. | Soumitra Khan | Bishnupur |
| 17. | Pawan Singh | Asansol |
| 18. | Priya Saha | Bolpur |
| 19. | Shantanu Thakur | Bongaon |
| 20. | Ashok Kandari | Joynagar |
Besides repeating some sitting MPs, the saffron party has also included some new faces, like Soumendu Adhikari, the younger brother of the leader of the opposition in the Bengal legislative assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. Soumendu has been fielded from Kanthi in East Midnapore, which has been held by the Adhikari family patriarch Sisir Adhikary since 2009. In Asansol, the BJP has fielded Bhojpuri actor-singer Pawan Singh against the sitting TMC MP Shatrughan Sinha.
The BJP has also declared names of candidates for Lok Sabha seats in the Northeast. The list of 195 candidates includes candidates on seats from Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh.
Assam
In Assam, the BJP has declared the names of candidates on 11 seats.
| Candidate | Seat | |
| 1 | Kripanath Mallah | Karinganj |
| 2 | Parimal Suklabaidya | Silchar |
| 3 | Amar Singh Tisso | Autonomous District |
| 4 | Bijuli Kalita Medhi | Gauhati |
| 5 | Dilip Saikia | Mangaldoi |
| 6 | Ranjit Dutta | Tezpur |
| 7 | Suresh Bora | Nowgong |
| 8 | Kamakhya Prasad Tasa | Kaliabor |
| 9 | Topon Kumar Gogoi | Jorhat |
| 10 | Sarbananda Sonowal | Dibrugarh |
| 11 | Pradhan Baruah | Lakhimpur |
Tripura & Arunachal Pradesh
The BJP annouced the name of Biplab Kumar Deb as the candidate from Tripura West. This Northeast state has only one more Parliamentary constituency — Tripura East.
From Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP announced the candidates for both seats, fielding sitting MP Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal West and Tapir Gao from Arunachal East constituencies.