BJP Fields Netaji's Grand-Nephew Against Mamata Banerjee In West Bengal Polls

New Delhi: The BJP will field Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grand-nephew Chandra Kumar Bose against chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the Bengal assembly elections next month, union education minister Smriti Irani announced today.

Mr Bose had joined the BJP at the end of January after meeting party president Amit Shah at a rally in Kolkata, even as the central government began declassifying secret files to settle questions over the death of Netaji, the iconic freedom fighter and Congress party leader who formed a national army to fight for Independence with the help of the Japanese in the 1940s.

Asked if a direct contest against the chief minister means he will be positioned as the BJP's candidate for CM, Mr Bose, 55, said today, "That's for the party to decide." But he also said he was not waging a "personal battle" and that, "elections should not be about personalities."

"The BJP needs to be given a chance. The others have governed for the last 39 years - first the CPM then Trinamool," Mr Bose said.

Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress will represent the Bhawanipur assembly constituency in the Bengal elections, which will be held in six phases from April 4. Votes will be counted on May 19.  

Chandra Kumar Bose is a former Tata Steel employee, who had launched his own human resource consultancy in 2000.

The BJP has not been a major player in Bengal elections so far but hopes to build on an early momentum it showed in the state in the 2014 national election, when it won two parliamentary seats. The party has steadily built up its cadres in the state in the last few years.  

Ms Banerjee is seeking a second straight term as chief minister. She had wrested Bengal in 2011 from nearly three decades of Left party CPM's rule.

The CPM is said to be in talks for a pre-poll alliance with the Congress.