Soon after Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee announced party candidates for 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, BJP criticized the list, claiming it is loaded with ‘outsiders’, many of whom are ‘BJP discards’. BJP’s information technology cell chief, Amit Malviya, ridiculed certain names in the list, questioning why TMC didn’t find enough local candidates. Malviya targeted Shatrughan Sinha, Kirti Azad, Yusuf Pathan, Krishna Kalyani, Mukut Mani Adhikari, Sujata Mondal, Biswajit Das, and Biplab Mitra. He also criticized TMC for re-nominating Abu Taher Khan, who was involved in a fatal accident. Locket Chatterjee, the sitting BJP Lok Sabha member, emphasized the battle between development policies and corruption and misrule.