The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal has opted to wield the star power of Shatrughan Sinha against Asansol’s Surinderjeet Singh Ahluwalia of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who goes to polls on Monday.
Shatrughan Sinha, the Bihari Babu of the Indian film industry, joined TMC in 2022 after a brief stint in the Congress. Sinha quit the BJP in 2019 alleging that the party has become a “one-man show”.
“The magic of Mamta’s personality speaks everywhere. The work that Mamta Banerjee has done for her people and the State, no CM has ever done for her people. And even the Prime Minister of the country has not done anything like that. “, Sinha had said while filing his nomination last month.
Sinha had earlier won from Bihar’s Patna Sahib constituency on BJP ticket in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Babul Supriyo, a popular singer who was then in the BJP, won the Asansol Lok Sabha seat. However, the post fell vacant when Supriyo joined the TMC. Sinha, who was fielded by the TMC in the bypolls, won the election with 56.62 per cent polling.
Supriyo won by a margin of 1,97,637 votes against Trinamool’s Moon Moon Sen, another film star fielded by the ruling party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014, Supriyo wrested the constituency from the Trinamool, winning by a margin of 70,480 votes against Dola Sen.
Incidentally, Asansol was one of the only two constituencies won by the BJP in West Bengal in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The other constituency, Darjeeling, was won by Ahluwalia, which is now up in arms against Sinha in Asansol.
Asansol is the headquarters of Paschim Bardhaman district, which borders Jharkhand. It is the second largest city in West Bengal after the state capital and has a large population of voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh who do not speak Bengali. Therefore, parties consider fielding a candidate who has Bihari links to be a lucrative option.
Ahluwalia, the sitting MP from Bardhaman Durgapur Lok Sabha constituency, was not the BJP’s first choice as a candidate from Asansol. The BJP had earlier chosen Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh against the brilliance of Shatrughan Sinha. However, Singh decided not to contest from Asansol after facing a backlash from the TMC over the obscene depiction of women in his music videos and films.
Following Singh’s announcement as the BJP candidate from Asansol, TMC minister Babul Supriyo, who represented Asansol twice while with the BJP, said, “I have nothing against him or his place or his followers.” How can the BJP present such a person from Asansol? asked to post about his withdrawal from the race. “We believe that the BJP removed him from Asansol without conducting the necessary background check and collecting details about him. “It also seems implausible that they submitted the fine without seeking his consent.”
However, Pawan Singh decided to contest as an independent candidate from Karakat of Bihar days after withdrawing from the Lok Sabha race.
Talking about the problems in Asansol, Ahluwalia said the main concern in his constituency is the availability of drinking water as people in villages are forced to drink filtered sewage.
“The biggest problem here is drinking water. PM Modi gave a call for ‘har ghar nal se jal’ and people of UP benefited from this scheme but it was not implemented here in West Bengal. People in villages is forced to drink filtered sewage. The state government did nothing to provide drinking water to the people,” Ahluwalia told ANI on Tuesday.
The BJP leader said that the money allocated to the Prime Minister Awas Yojana was taken by a Trinamool Congress family and the poor did not receive it.
“The money allocated for Prime Minister Awas Yojana was taken by members of a family in Trinamool and they built a big palace. PM Modi had promised to give concrete houses to all the poor. But no one received it. After investigation, It was found that those who have scooters, motorcycles and adequate housing have benefited from it,” Ahluwalia said.
Ahluwalia served as Minister of State for Urban Affairs and Employment (Department of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation) and Parliamentary Affairs in the cabinet of PV Narasimha Rao from 15 September 1995 to 16 May 1996. He was also a deputy leader of the opposition in Rajya. Sabha from June 2010 to May 2012. From 1986 to 2012, he was a Rajya Sabha MP representing Bihar and Jharkhand. In 1999 he joined the BJP and in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections he won from the Darjeeling constituency with the active support of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which is fighting the polls in the state in collaboration with the Congress, as part of the opposition INDIA bloc, has summoned Jahanara Khan from Asansol.
West Bengal, which sends 42 MPs to Parliament, will vote in all seven phases. Voting for six Lok Sabha seats in Bengal was held in the first three phases on April 19, April 26 and May 7.
Elections for the remaining parliamentary seats will be held on May 13, 20, 25 and June 1. The vote count is scheduled for June 4.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC won 34 seats in the state, while the BJP had to settle for 2 seats. The CPI(M) won 2 seats, while the Congress won 4.
However, the BJP fared much better in the 2019 polls, winning 18 seats to the TMC’s 22. The Congress tally fell to just 2 seats, while the Left was left blank.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1.
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