By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Tuesday filed his nomination as the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate from Jadavpore – from where he has won five back-to-back elections since 1987 – for the West Bengal assembly polls.
Bhattacharjee – who has headed the Left Front government since Novembr 2000 – went to the treasury building of South 24 Parganas district amid slogan shouting by hundreds of his supporters.
Bhattacharjee was flanked by former city mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and CPI-M South 24 Parganas district secretary Sujon Chakraborty – an ex-Lok Sabha member from Jadavpore – when he signed the documents. He did not speak to the media.
The CPI-M veteran faces former civil servant Manish Gupta, the Trinamool Congress nominee from the seat regarded a CPI-M bastion. Gupta was the chief secretary when Bhattacharjee took over as chief minister.
Bhattacharjee is a six-time legislator who made his maiden entry into the state assembly in 1977 from Cossipore constituency in North Kolkata by defeating veteran Congress leader Pafulla Kanti Ghosh. In 1982, Ghosh defeated Bhattacharjee, who switched to Jadavpore five years later.
Bhattacharjee succeeded Jyoti Basu when he stepped down as chief minister.