The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released its sixth and final list for the West Bengal Assembly elections, naming Rakesh Singh as its candidate for the Kolkata port seat.
The announcement comes just 24 hours after Singh was released on bail by the Calcutta High Court after the BJP told Justice Kausik Chanda that the party intends to field him in the state elections.
Kolkata Port is gearing up for a high-stakes battle between Rakesh Singh and Kolkata Mayor and State Government Minister Firhad Hakim, who has held the seat since 2011, when the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress came to power for the first time in West Bengal.
The constituency, which goes to the polls in the final phase on April 29, remains a stronghold of the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Rakesh Singh, who was a former West Bengal Congress member before being expelled in 2018, was arrested by Kolkata Police last year in connection with the incident on August 28, 2025, in which a group of BJP workers set fire to Congress hoardings and smeared black paint on Rahul Gandhi posters over the alleged use of offensive words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the ‘Adhikar Yatra vote’ in Bihar.
Singh was arrested and remanded in Presidential Correctional Home.
The state government opposed the bail plea, alleging that Singh was a “history-taker” and an accused in more than 50 criminal cases.
Singh did not speak to the media after his name was announced.
The BJP announced its first list of candidates on March 16, identifying 144 candidates for Bengal’s 294 seats. With the sixth list on Wednesday, the party announced all 294 names, including three non-BJP-backed candidates.
Muslims form the majority in the eight municipal wards that make up the port headquarters of Kolkata, which was known as Garden Reach before demarcation. All parties, except the Bharatiya Janata Party, have fielded Muslim candidates.
Between 1952 and 2021, only two Hindu candidates, Communist Party of India (CPI) Arun Sen and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Cheddi Lal Singh, won the seat in the 1960s and 1970s.
