Held on actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha’s star power and appeal among the Hindi-speaking population, the TMC is expected to win the Asansol Lok Sabha seat, with ‘Bihari Babu’ trying to fight the outside tag in the industrial city. Bengal’s ruling party, which has never tasted success in Asansol, apart from four other parliamentary constituencies in the state, is doing everything possible to break this illusion.
Trinamool Congress’ Paschim Bardhaman convener V Shivdasan Dasu said, “We are hopeful that Sinha, who is immensely popular among the masses, will be able to win the seat for us.” The by-election for the Lok Sabha constituency is to be held in April. 12, former Union minister and two-time MP Babul Supriyo, who quit the membership of Parliament last year after crossing over from the BJP to the TMC.
The saffron party, on its part, is working hard to retain the seat that Supriyo had won twice for the camp – in 2014 and 2019 – as he contested the fashion designer-cum- Agnimitra Paul, a member of the saffron camp, was fielded. Supriyo, who quit the BJP after being dropped from the Union ministry, is contesting on a TMC ticket for the Ballygunge assembly by-election to be held along with the Asansol election.
The Lok Sabha bypolls have rekindled the ‘insider-outsider’ debate, an election issue that helped the TMC thrash the BJP in last year’s assembly polls, this time with the ruling TMC, as the BJP is all guns blazing. Sinha to project as an “outsider”. According to the 2011 census, an industrial belt in West Bardhaman district known for its coal mines, steel industries and Chittaranjan locomotives, Asansol in West Bengal is the second largest and most populous city after Kolkata.
About 1.5 million voters of Asansol are coal mine workers, factory workers and small-time businessmen. About 45 percent of voters speak Hindi, and trace their roots to Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The region also has a minority population of about 15 percent. According to TMC sources, nominating the two-time MP from Patna Sahib, who has worked in Delhi for the better part of his political career, is part of the party’s national outreach strategy.
Popularly called ‘shotgun’ by fans for his direct dialogues in films, Sinha, who joined the TMC after his four-decade-long stint in the BJP and a brief shift in the Congress, was, however, given up by his rivals. Dismissed the “external” tag. Sinha said, “I am no less a Bengali than any other Bengali. I am not an outsider. I have always loved the Bengali language and Bengali culture. I have done many films in Bengal, and the Bengali language I speak cannot be dubbed. is done,” Sinha, known for his signature dialogue ‘Khamosh’, told PTI. The former Union minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet said, “Like my Janmabhoomi (Janmabhoomi) Bihar, my heart has always been in Bengal.”
Countering them, BJP candidate and Asansol South MLA Paul wondered what the TMC had to say now about branding BJP leaders from other states as outsiders ahead of last year’s assembly elections. “I was born and brought up here. I am an MLA from this area. But the TMC candidate is neither from West Bengal nor from this place. TMC used to call BJP leaders ‘outsiders’ during the assembly elections He should explain this double standard,” he said, expressing confidence that his party would be able to retain the seat.
A senior Trinamool Congress leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the party had pitched Sinha in an attempt to distance itself from the electoral issue of Bengali sub-nationalism, which is proving to be a hindrance to the party’s national expansion plans. “We had adopted Bengali sub-nationalism to counter the BJP in the assembly elections. This is now proving to be a serious problem. Like Sinha, we are trying to give a pan-India appeal to the party.”
The Asansol Lok Sabha constituency has largely been a Congress stronghold till the late eighties. However, in 1989, it became a CPI(M) stronghold. The tables turned in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as the people of Asansol voted for Supriyo, the political greenhorn at the time, in which the BJP won the seat. Supriyo, who had secured 36.75 per cent vote share in 2014, won the Paschim Bardhaman constituency in 2019, increasing his vote share to 51.16 per cent. However, the TMC made a steady and strong recovery in the industrial sector in the 2021 assembly elections, as it won five of the seven assembly seats in the region.
The BJP, during its by-election campaigns, accused the TMC government of neglecting the constituency, exposing the coal theft scam that is being probed by the CBI. The Mamata Banerjee-led party has claimed that the saffron camp is using the central probe agency to harass party leaders over the coal scam. Apart from BJP and TMC, CPI(M) and Congress are also in the fray.
CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty reiterated that there was hardly any difference between the ruling party and the main opposition camp in Bengal. He said, “People of Asansol will vote for us because the change in the camp of Babul Supriyo has proved that both TMC and BJP are sides of the same coin.” The results of the bypolls will be declared on April 16.
read all breaking news , today’s fresh news And IPL 2022 Live Updates Here.