Kolkata, March 18 : The BJP on Friday named fashion designer and state women’s wing leader Agnimitra Paul as its candidate to take on Trinamool Congress nominee Bollywood veteran Shatrughan Sinha in the Asansol Lok Sabha by-poll scheduled for April 12. Paul is now an MLA from Asansol (South) assembly seat which she won in the elections last year. The Left front has already announced Partha Mukherjee, of the CPI-M as its contestant for the seat,where the election has been necessitated by the resignation of singer Babul Supriyo. Supriyo, who won the seat for the second time on a BJP ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, quit the saffrom party and crossed over to the Trinamool after he was dropped from the Union Ministry. The BJP also announced former television anchor Keya Ghosh as its nominee for the Ballygunge Assembly constituency by-polls on the same date. Ghosh would be pitted against Supriyo, who is in the race as a Trinamool candidate. Saira Shah Halim, a niece of iconic Hollywood actor Naseerudding Shah, is the LF-backed CPI-M nominee in the seat which fell vacant after the death of senior state Minister Subrata Mukherjee.
