Sources: TMC to handle 10-12 new faces in Lok Sabha polls

Kolkata, Mar 11 At least 10-12 new faces are likely to find a place in the Trinamool Congress candidate list for Lok Sabha polls, party sources said Monday.

The new faces will be fielded from the seats the party had won and also from those it had lost amid the 2014 election, they said.

What's more, the party will also assess the performance of its sitting MPs, both inside Parliament and outside, before giving them a ticket, the sources said.

"At present, we have 34 MPs and out of them two have been removed and new competitors will challenge from those two voting public," a senior TMC leader said.

"We will also contribute new competitors in two different seats where superstars are MPs at present. New faces would supplant the old competitors, aside from a couple, in all the eight seats that the party had lost in 2014," the leader said.

The TMC, which has 34 MPs out of an aggregate of 42 situates in the state, lost two of its legislators as of late Soumitra Khan of Bishnupur surrendered to BJP and Anupam Hazra of Bolpur was removed for anti-party activities.

It is likely that some of the MPs would not make it to the applicant list as they have not fared well.

However, a final decision on ticket distribution would be taken by the party supremo Mamata Banerjee, the TMC leader said.

"How the person has fared as a public representative and if he or she was able to take up the issues concerning people are very important. The same applies while distributing tickets to those who lost the last time," he said.

The TMC, which is locked in a bitter political battle with the BJP in the state, is looking at the two seats the saffron party had won in 2014 Darjeeling and Asansol.

The BJP has made steady inroads in Bengal and emerged as the main challenger to the TMC. It has set an objective of winning 23 situates in the state in the lok Sabha election scheduled to be held from April 11 to May 19 out of seven stages.

With 42 parliamentary voting public, West Bengal sends the third-biggest number of MPs to Lok Sabha after Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48).

The election results will be declared on May 23.