New Delhi, Mar 7 (IANS): The Congress on Saturday announced its first list of candidates for 13 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal and 40 seats in Assam.

The 294-member West Bengal Assembly will go to the polls in eight phases from March 27 to April 29, while elections to the 126-member Assam Assembly will be held in three phases from March 27 to April 6. The results will be declared on May 2.

The list for West Bengal includes names of five candidates for the first phase and eight candidates for the second phase of polling.

As per the list, Sukhdeb Bera will contest from Prathapratima, Indrani Raut from Kakdwip, Manish Bhowmi from Moyna, Shiu Maiti from Bhagwanpur, Manas Kumar Karmahpatra from Egra and Uttam Bnerjee from Balarampur.

Earlier in the day, the BJP had also released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal Assembly elections, fielding ex-Trinamool leader Suvendu Adhikari against Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee from the Nandigram Assembly seat.

The Congress also announced 40 candidates for the Assam Assembly polls. The party has named Assam Congress chief Ripun Bora from Gohpur, Ram Prasad Sharma from Barchalla and Anuj Kumar Mech from Tezpur. The party has also fielded Bismark Gogoi from Khumtai and Rana Goswami from Jorhat.

According to the poll panel, out of the total 126 Assembly seats in Assam, eight are reserved for SC candidates and 16 for ST nominees.