The Congress on Sunday released its complete list of 284 candidates for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, opting to contest the polls independently in what is shaping up as a direct battle between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.Senior party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has been fielded from Baharampur, while Pradip Prasad will contest from Bhabanipur, a seat held by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the previous election. Former MP Mausam Noor has been nominated from Malatipur.The party has also named Madhap Rai from Darjeeling, Abdul Hannan from Sujapur, Susmita Biswas from Dum Dum, Gautam Bhattacharya from Diamond Harbour, Souvik Mukherjee from Asansol Dakshin and Prasenjit Puitandi from Asansol Uttar.The announcement follows a high-level meeting of senior Congress leaders a day earlier, where the final contours of the candidate list were cleared.The decision to go solo marks a shift in the party’s electoral strategy in the state, where the contest is largely seen as a straight fight between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP.Polling in West Bengal will be held in two phases, April 23 and April 29, with counting of votes scheduled for May 4.The 2021 Assembly elections were conducted in eight phases, when the TMC had secured a decisive mandate with 213 seats, while the Congress, along with its Left Front allies, failed to win a single seat.