All the major parties have started their election campaigns regarding the assembly elections in West Bengal. There are chances of tough contests on many seats while many seats are in the news because of the candidates. One such seat is Kolkata Port. There is a tough contest between TMC and BJP on this high profile seat. BJP has fielded a face from this seat who entered the election field as soon as he came out of jail and started campaigning.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its sixth list of candidates for the West Bengal Assembly elections two days ago on Wednesday, in which the name of only one candidate was there and that was Rakesh Singh. BJP has fielded Rakesh from Kolkata Port seat. He was released from Presidency Jail about 24 hours before getting the ticket. With the entry of Rakesh Singh into the fray, the contest has become high profile because Trinamool Congress (TMC) has fielded its veteran leader and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim from here.
Rakesh Singh, who was in the news for his statements, who was in jail for more than 5 months, was granted bail with several conditions. After being absconding for 5 days, he was arrested from a private residence in Tangra area of Kolkata in September last year. He was released recently with several conditions.
According to media reports, the Bengal government had told the Calcutta High Court that Rakesh Singh is a history-sheeter and 56 criminal cases are pending against him. TOI claims that at least 91 cases may be registered against him. He started his political career as a union leader in Kolkata Zoo.
A group of BJP supporters led by Rakesh Singh attacked Vidhan Bhavan on August 29, 2025. Posters of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were vandalized, and arson was carried out by burning tires outside the office in protest against comments allegedly targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Not only this, the BJP leader had also live-streamed this incident on social media.
BJP candidate Rakesh told in his affidavit filed for the election that he has Rs 39 thousand in cash and his wife has Rs 35 thousand in cash. Rakesh has 210 grams of gold which is worth around Rs 25 lakh in the market. Whereas the wife has 600 grams of gold worth Rs 70 lakh.
In this way, he has assets worth Rs 1.04 crore and his wife has assets worth Rs 1.44 crore (1,44,12,587). Apart from this, Rakesh has immovable property worth more than Rs 52 lakh and his wife has more than Rs 71 lakh. In the affidavit, he said that he has not been convicted in any criminal case till now.
Kolkata Port seat is a Muslim dominated seat. BJP has not won here even once. TMC has been dominating here since 2011. Earlier the name of this seat used to be Garden Reach, but later it was changed to Kolkata Port seat. Firhad Hakim dominates this seat which comes under Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat.
Veteran TMC leader Firhad Hakim has been winning since 2011. After 2011, he had won in 2016 and 2021. In the last election, Hakim had defeated BJP's Awadh Kishore Gupta by 68 thousand votes. BJP candidate Raj Kumar Sha got 2,699 votes in the 2011 elections. While in 2016, BJP's Awadh Kishore Gupta got 11,700 votes, in 2021 the number of votes increased to 36,989. In such a situation, the chances of a tough competition have increased this time.
