The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday named Rakesh Singh as its candidate from the Kolkata Port constituency for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections. Singh, who was released from Presidency Jail just 24 hours ago, is set for a high-profile showdown against veteran Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim.
Singh, who had been in jail for over five months, was granted bail with several conditions. He was arrested in September 2025 from a private residence in Kolkata’s Tangra area after allegedly going absconding for five days.
On August 29, 2025, a group of BJP supporters led by Singh attacked Bidhan Bhawan, defaced posters of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and burnt tyres outside the office to protest over remarks allegedly targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP leader had also live-streamed the incident.
Singh, who already had dozens of criminal cases against him, was arrested under sections of the Arms Act, the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, and several sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, including those related to causing hurt, criminal intimidation, and mischief.
A significant figure in South Kolkata Congress, Singh joined the BJP in 2019 in the presence of senior party leaders like Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijayvargiya in New Delhi.
Before joining the BJP in March 2019, Singh was in the Congress and contested the 2016 Assembly elections from the Kolkata Port seat, but lost to the Trinamool Congress candidate.
In February 2021, Kolkata police arrested Rakesh Singh in a drug seizure case after fellow BJP leader Pamela Goswami accused him of framing her. He was also among the accused in the case related to the vandalism of the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s roadshow in May 2019.
With this, the BJP has announced candidates for all 294 seats of the West Bengal Assembly. The party released 144 names in its first list, followed by 112 in the second, 19 in the third, 13 in the fourth, five in the fifth, and one in the final list.
Polling in West Bengal will be held in two phases, on April 23 and April 29, and the results will be declared on May 4.