Kolkata, Sept 1 (IBNS): The Communist Party of India
(Marxist) has fielded a professor of Jadavpur University against West Bengal
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the assembly by-election from Bhowanipur.
Mamata Banerjee, who defeated the Left Front in
the April-May state election ending the 34 year long rule of the Marxists, is
fighting the bypoll scheduled on Sept 25 from the Bhowanipore assembly seat to
be elected to the state assembly to continue as the chief minister of the
state.
The Left Front nominated CPI (M) candidate is Dr.
Nandini Mukhopadhyay and she is a professor in the Computer Science &
Engineering Department in Jadavpur University.
West Bengal PWD minister and Trinamool Congress
legislator Subrata Bakshi has resigned from the Bhowanipur seat earlier to
enable Mamata Banerjee to contest.
Mamata Banerjee is an MP from Kolkata (South)
seat, but not a member of the state assembly.
A resident of Golf Garden in south Kolkata,
Mamata's challenger Mukhopadhyay did her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of
Manchester, UK. She did her M.E. in 1991 from the Jadavpur University and her
B.E. in 1987 from Calcutta University. Her research area is Parallel Computing,
Grid Computing and Wireless Sensor Networks.
The CPI (M) candidate taking on a political
behemoth like Mamata Banerjee, whose win is seen as a forgone conclusion, was
associated with the left student movement.
Meanwhile, CPI(M) has put up Subid Ali Gazi for
the Basirhat (North) assembly constituency where a by-election was necessitated
after the party MLA Mustafa Bin Kashem had an unnatural death at the city MLA
Hostel soon after the election in May.
