Giving a preference to women candidates the Trinamool Congress on Sunday nominated more than 45 per cent of female candidates for the polls to Kolkata Municipal Corporation scheduled next month.
Announcing its complete list of candidates on International Women's Day the State's ruling party nominated 66 women candidates for 144 wards of the city's civic body.
“The names were finalised after the recommendations from the part’s scrutiny committee. For the first time in the history of the Kolkata municipality polls, a record number of women have been fielded by a political party,” West Bengal Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee told journalists. He added that the TMC was the first political party to declare its complete list for the civic polls.
Newly-inducted members and former Congress leaders Mala Roy and Suman Singh were given a ticket each by the party. The TMC has mostly retained its sitting councillors in the list, besides handing out tickets to relatives of senior leaders of the TMC including a few Ministers. The TMC has also nominated 20 candidates from minority communities which is about 13 percent of overall candidates.