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TMC fields Shatrughan, Supriyo for LS, Bengal bypolls
Kolkata: Veteran actor and former Bharatiya Janata Party minister Shatrughan Sinha will be the Trinamool Congress party’s candidate in the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in West Burdwan district that former BJP minister Babul Supriyo vacated, party chairperson Mamata Mamata Banerjee announced on Sunday
Kolkata: Veteran actor and former Bharatiya Janata Party minister Shatrughan Sinha will be the Trinamool Congress party’s candidate in the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in West Burdwan district that former BJP minister Babul Supriyo vacated, party chairperson Mamata Mamata Banerjee announced on Sunday.
Supriyo, who had joined the TMC in September last year, will contest south Kolkata’s Ballygunge assembly seat that fell vacant following the death of minister and veteran leader Subrata Mukherjee in November, Banerjee announced in her tweets.
Polls in Asansol and Ballygunge will be held on April 12. The results will be announced on April 16.
“Happy to announce on behalf of the All India Trinamool Congress that Sri Shatrughan Sinha, former Union minister and famed actor, will be our candidate in Lok Sabha by-election from Asansol,” Banerjee tweeted on Sunday afternoon.
“Sri Babul Supriyo, former union minister and noted singer, will be our candidate in Vidhansabha by- election from Ballygunge. Jai Hind, Jai Bangla, Jai Ma- Mati- Manush!” she wrote in a second tweet.
Singer-turned-politician Supriyo, 51, won the Asansol seat twice since 2014 and was a Union minister of state.
Sinha, 76, on the other hand, was a member of both houses of Parliament for two terms in each. He was also a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
As a disgruntled BJP leader, Sinha took part in meetings and rallies that Banerjee held with heads of regional parties before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but has not yet formally joined the TMC.
“I am happy. Didi wanted me to work for people. I will follow her path,” said Supriyo.
Sinha couldn’t be reached for a comment.
“TMC workers will work with full dedication to ensure victory for Sinha and Supriyo. Sinha is not just a veteran actor. He is an experienced politician who headed union ministries,” said Kolkata mayor and minister Firhad Hakim.
Targeting the TMC chief, the BJP said Sinha was being fielded from Asansol because of differences between Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek, the party’s national general secretary.
“It was widely speculated that TMC would field Saayoni Ghosh, president of party’s youth wing, considered close to Abhishek Banerjee, from Asansol. But Mamata Banerjee, just to cut her nephew to size has fielded a complete outsider, not just for Asansol but Bengal, from the seat,” tweeted Amit Malviya, head of the BJP’s IT cell and co-in-charge of the Bengal unit.
Sinha was chosen for the Asansol seat because a sizeable chunk of the local voters comprise Hindi-speaking people and migrants from Bihar, the home state of the former actor where he is extremely popular, said a TMC leader who declined to be named.
This will be the second time Supriyo will be facing Kolkata voters in less than a year. As a BJP candidate, he lost from the Tollygunge assembly seat in the assembly polls last year. He left the BJP after being dropped from the union ministry and joined the TMC on September 18.
Opposing Supriyo’s candidature from Ballygunge, Md Yahiya, chairman of the West Bengal Imams Association, declared on Sunday evening that he will contest the seat as an independent candidate if the TMC fields the former BJP leader.
“Babul Supriyo has always been a part of communal politics. The son of the Imam at Asansol was killed in communal attacks when Supriyo was the local MP. The TMC has to find a suitable candidate or else I will contest against Supriyo,” Yahiya said.
Imdadul Rashidi, the Imam of a mosque in Asansol lost his 16-year-old son during communal clashes amid Ram Navami celebrations in 2018. Supriyo won the seat for the second time in 2019.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee targeted the Centre on Sunday for slashing the interest rate at the Employees Provident Fund Organisation to 8.1% from 8.5%.
“After the vote victory in UP, BJP government comes out with its gift card immediately! It at once unmasks itself by proposing to slash the interest rate on Employees’ Provident Fund deposits to a four- decade low nadir. This is amidst the pandemic-hit financial stresses of middle and lower middle class workers and employees of the country,” she tweeted.
“The anti-people, anti-worker step exposes the crudely lopsided public policies of the current central establishment which espouses interests of big capital at the expense of farmers, workers, and middle classes. The black initiative must be thwarted by united protests,” she wrote in a second tweet.
