Mamata fields Shatrughan Sinha for Bengal LS bypoll; Babul Supriyo to contest assembly seat

Mamata fields Shatrughan Sinha for Bengal LS bypoll; Babul Supriyo to contest assembly seat
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Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Sunday named former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Union minister and veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha as her candidate for the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in West Burdwan district that former Union minister Babul Supriyo vacated after joining the TMC in September last year.

Supriyo, Banerjee announced in her tweets, will contest south Kolkata’s Ballygunge assembly seat that fell vacant following the death of minister and veteran TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee in November.

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 for 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 Vidhan Sabha by-election from Ballygunge. Jai Hind, Jai Bangla, Jai Ma-Maati- Manush!” she wrote in a second tweet.

Singer-turned-politician Supriyo, 51, won the Asansol seat twice since 2019 and was a Union minister of state.

Seventy-six-year-old Sinha, on the other hand, was a member of both Houses of Parliament for two terms in each. He was also a minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government.

As a disgruntled BJP leader, Sinha took part in meetings and rallies that Mamata 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.

“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 the 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 national information technology cell and co-in-charge of the Bengal unit.

A senior TMC leader, who did not want to be named, said 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.

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 March-April polls last year. He left the BJP after being dropped from the Union ministry and joined the TMC on September 18.

Mamata Banerjee also targeted the Centre on Sunday for slashing the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) interest rate.

“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 capitalists at the expense of farmers, workers, and middle classes. The black initiative must be thwarted by united protests,” she wrote in a second tweet.

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