Candidate’s name is Mamata, not Supriyo: Abhishek tells Ballygunge voters before polls

The by-poll is being held because veteran TMC minister Subrata Mukherjee, who had won by a record margin of 72,000 votes in the March-April polls last year, died in November.

With a large section of Muslim voters in Kolkata’s Ballygunge assembly constituency reacting adversely to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) fielding former Union minister Babul Supriyo for the April 12 by-polls, party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said on Thursday that the real candidate is chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee participates in a rally in support of TMC candidate for Ballygunge by-election Babul Supriyo in Kolkata on Thursday. (SAMIR JANA/HT PHOTO.)

“After Supriyo’s name was announced many people said voting for him is akin to voting for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). I want to tell them that Babul Supriyo has abandoned the BJP’s ideology and embraced the ideology of TMC. He has left the politics of Jai Sri Ram and followed the politics of Jai Bangla and Jai Hind,” the chief minister’s nephew said at a rally he led with Supriyo.

“The name of the candidate is not Babul Supriyo, the name is Mamata Banerjee,” Abhishek added.

The by-poll is being held because veteran TMC minister Subrata Mukherjee, who had won by a record margin of 72,000 votes in the March-April polls last year, died in November.

For Supriyo, who left the BJP last year after being dropped from the Narendra Modi government, the demographic character of Ballygunge poses a challenge because he had earlier spoken in favour of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Around two million people in Assam were excluded from the NRC in 2019 due to lack of documents.

Notified in 2020 by the Union home ministry, the CAA offers citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before 2015. The TMC insists that the law is unconstitutional as it links citizenship to faith in a secular country.

Also, an Imam’s son was killed in communal clashes during Ram Navami celebrations in 2018 at Asansol (West Burdwan district) where Supriyo was the Lok Sabha MP for two consecutive terms till he resigned from Parliament after joining the TMC. After the clashes, Supriyo was accused of making objectionable statements.

Of the seven civic wards in the Ballygunge assembly segment, Muslims comprise around 60% of the electorate in five, Md Yahiya, the chairman of the West Bengal Imams Association who has publicly opposed Supriyo’s candidature, calling him communal, told HT earlier this week.

Supriyo joined the TMC in September. Yahiya and leaders of several civil rights groups held rallies against NRC and CAA in Ballygunge after TMC fielded Supriyo. A protest was held on Thursday as well.

“Subrata Mukherjee lives in every neighbourhood of Ballygunge. We selected Supriyo so that Mukherjee’s incomplete projects can be taken forward,” Abhishek Banerjee said on Thursday.

“Many in the Bengal BJP are standing in queue to join the TMC. The party will fold up if we open our doors,” he said.

Accusing the BJP of using Central probe agencies to keep the TMC under pressure, the young TMC MP said: “Don’t forget how Subrata Mukherjee was insulted when he was arrested by CBI in the Narada case. Give a befitting reply to the BJP in this election. We will win the seat by 60-70,000 votes.”

Not naming the movie The Kashmir Files, Banerjee said, “You have a government at the Centre that lifts tax on the tickets of a movie but increases tax on medicines and hikes fuel prices every day.”

Supriyo faces two women debutants, Saira Shah Halim of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M), and the BJP’s Keya Ghosh. Abhishek accused the CPI (M) of being a partner of the BJP in this election.

The BJP bagged 21.68% votes in the 2021 polls.

Reacting to Abhishek Banerjee’s appeal to voters, Keya Ghosh said: “During the 2016 polls, when so many TMC leaders were accused in the Narada and Saradha cases, Mamata Banerjee said it was she who was contesting all 294 assembly seats of Bengal. She repeated the statement last year and now her nephew is making the same appeal in a by-poll. Doesn’t Supriyo have any personal charisma of his own?”