New Delhi:
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Thursday evening. For West Bengal, candidates for as many as 28 of the 42 seats have been announced. The party has set an ambitious target of winning over 20 seats this time around. Currently BJP has two incumbent MPs in Babul Supriyo from Asansol and SS Ahluwalia from Darjeeling.
Supriyo has once again found a spot in the party’s list and will be contesting from Asansol. However, this has thrown open an interesting ‘filmy’ battle of sorts with the Trinamool Congress fielding parliamentarian Moon Moon Sen to take on the singer-turned-politician.
However, if sources are to be believed, Sen is extremely unpopular among Trinamool party workers. Once dubbed as the giant killer after she defeated nine-time CPI(M) MP Basudeb Acharia in Bankura in 2014. But things haven’t gone so well since then for her in the seat, admitted TMC leaders.
“She is very unpopular. The local TMC leaders in the area have long been complaining that she is hardly ever present in the seat and TMC’s popularity has waned. The BJP, meanwhile, has been making steady inroads,” said a TMC district leader from Bankura as quoted by News 18. Therefore, sending Sen to contest in Asansol could also potentially serve the purpose of neutralising the existing factions within the Trinamool in the area.
“There are at least four different factions in Asansol and they have all been contesting within themselves for supremacy. By sending an outsider, that too someone who is as much a celebrity as Babul Supriyo can neutralise this,” the source added.
Sen has to her credit Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi and Kannada films. She joined the Trinamool Congress in 2014 and is the daughter of legendary Bengali actress Suchitra Sen and Dibanath Sen, the great grandson of the Diwan of Tripura. After completing her graduation from Somerville College in Oxford and her Masters from Jadavpur University, Sen made her film debut in 1984. Supriyo, on the other hand, was a popular Bollywood playback singer with hits such as Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai under his belt. He joined politics in 2014.
