Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee announced that Shatrughan Sinha would be her party’s candidate for the Asansol Lok Sabha bypoll and former union minister Babul Supriyo as the nominee for the Ballygunge Assembly by-election. While Supriyo quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined the TMC in September last year, Sinha is yet to join Mamata's TMC.
By-elections to both the seats will be held on April 12. The Asansol seat fell vacant after Supriyo resigned as the BJP Member of Parliament from the seat from where he had won the election in 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He has been made the TMC candidate from the Ballygunge Assembly constituency in Kolkata, which fell vacant after the demise of former state minister and veteran party leader Subrata Mukherjee in November last year.
After inducting national leaders like Yashwant Sinha, Sushmita Dev and Luizinho Faleiro, actor-turned-politician Sinha is the TMC’s latest catch as part of its national expansion plan. By bringing in prominent and senior leaders with a national-level presence, the TMC is trying to project itself as a truly national party having a sound arsenal to go after the BJP. The party intends to gain from their experience to put up a strong opposition in both houses of the Parliament.
Sinha is also a former BJP leader who quit the saffron camp to join the Congress. He unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Patna Sahib in Bihar on a Congress ticket. Supriyo too is a former Union minister and two-time BJP MP from Asansol. By making them party candidates, Mamata is drawing strength from the BJP and Congress and building her own party. She is also sending a message to fence-sitters that if they follow suit then they will be met with similar rewards.
The Asansol Lok Sabha constituency consists of a mixed population of coal mine workers, factory workers, scrap dealers and minority population. About 50 per cent of the electorate are Hindi-speaking and therefore a candidate like Sinha, who is a popular face, is a well-chosen persona to connect with them. Similarly, the Ballygunge Assembly constituency too has a sizeable non-Bengali population. Babul Supriyo with his image of a playback singer is likely to draw their support.
