E-Paper
Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh is BJP's Lok Sabha poll candidate from Asansol. Will he face Shatrughan Sinha?
Asansol is currently represented by veteran actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who is a sitting MP from the Trinamool Congress.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday fielded Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh from West Bengal's Asansol, setting stage for what could be an interesting contest in this constituency.
Asansol is currently represented by veteran actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who is a sitting MP from the Trinamool Congress. Mamata Banerjee's party has not announced the candidate from the seat. If Sinha is fielded, Asansol will witness an exciting contest between the two candidates who actually are from Bihar.
“A heartfelt thanks to the BJP leadership,” Singh wrote in a post on social platform X. According to a Live Hindustan report, Pawan Singh said he has grown up watching Shatrughan Sinha, but his ideology is different from the veteran actor.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Babul Supriyo had won this seat on a BJP ticket by defeating TMC's Moon Moon Sen. Two years later, he resigned from the seat and joined the TMC. In 2022, Sinha was elected to the Lok Sabha from Asansol.
ALSO READ: Who is BJP's Bansuri Swaraj, Sushma Swaraj's daughter, making Lok Sabha debut?
BJP's Bhojpuri star candidates
Pawan Singh joins the list of prominent Bhojpuri actors who are among the 195 candidates announced by the BJP on Saturday. Former Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari is a sitting MP from North East Delhi and will be contesting from the constituency for the third time.
On the other hand, actor Ravi Kishen will contest from Yogi Adityanath bastion Gorakhpur for the second time. Kishen had won the seat in 2019, once represented by the incumbent Uttar Pradesh chief minister till 2017.
Dinesh Lal Yadav alias Nirahua, a sitting MP from Azamgarh, will be contesting from this seat again. In 2022, he had defeated Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav by nearly 9,000 votes. Azamgarh was won by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav in 2019, who had resigned from the constituency after being elected as an MLA from Karhal.
