Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to have employed the tactics of the ‘enemy’, the BJP, in choosing actor-turned-politician Shatrughan ‘Shotgun’ Sinha to contest as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate in the byelection to the Asansol Lok Sabha seat, where the party has never won.
Until earlier this week, Sinha was a leader of the Bihar Congress, which more than qualifies him for the ‘outsider’ tag that Mamata has often used to criticise the BJP’s choice of candidates in Bengal. However, she has clearly had a change of heart about ‘outsiders’ and the need to appeal to the non-Bengali population — which is a strategy that the BJP has adopted.
It is not just about votes for the TMC, though. With the party aiming for national expansion, it is making efforts to pitch representation from other states of the country, and ‘outsiders’ fit into this plan.
Asansol was earlier held by singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo, who won it for the BJP in both 2014 and 2019. Supriyo jumped ship to the TMC in September last year.
When the Election Commission announced bypoll dates for Bengal and other states last week, the TMC put up Supriyo as its nominee for the Ballygunge assembly seat, which was vacant since incumbent MLA Subrata Mukherjee’s death last November.
The surprise new candidate for the now-vacant Asansol seat was Shatrughan Sinha, who accepted the “invite” with gusto.
Happy to share that on an invite from our own, tigress of Bengal, tried, tested, successful honourable CM, Bengal @Mamataofficial I have joined #TMC. Shall be contesting under the dynamic leadership of a great lady, great leader of the masses in true sense, Mamata Banerjee
— Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) March 15, 2022
Sinha lost from his Patna Sahib constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but he is still a popular face and was chosen not despite but because of his ‘Bihari Babu’ tag.
Asansol, about 200 km from Kolkata is the second-most populous city in Bengal. With the thriving coal, steel, and railway industries in this belt, it attracts many workers from Hindi-speaking states in the vicinity, like Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.
“Asansol is a mixed population — there are non-Bengalis, Bengalis, and Muslims. It is largely an industrial belt, with coal mines, and so the working class is higher in number. Shatrughan Sinha is a popular face; the people recognise him, and he connects very well with Hindi speakers. So, the party felt he could clinch the Asansol seat,” V. Sivadasan Dasu, TMC’s Paschim Bardhaman state secretary and convenor, said.
Also Read: How BJP is using Mamata’s ‘outsider’ jibe to pit Bengali vs non-Bengali & pull the votes
Shotgun fits into long-term plan for national expansion
As the TMC eyes national expansion, it is pursuing representation from across states. The party has sent two former Congress leaders, Sushmita Dev from Assam and Goa’s Luizinho Faleiro, to the Rajya Sabha and is now pinning hopes on Sinha to win Asansol and enter the Lok Sabha for the TMC.
“Shatrughan Sinha has experience in parliamentary affairs. He has been an MP and a Union minister in the past. The party will have stronger and better representation in the Lok Sabha with a TMC leader who hails from Bihar. The representatives being placed in Parliament from various states add to the TMC’s identity,” TMC MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told ThePrint.
Nevertheless, the choice of Shatrughan Sinha seems counter-intuitive given the solid track record of Babul Supriyo in Asansol.
Why not Babul Supriyo?
Trinamool Congress’s candidates have been trounced twice by Babul Supriyo in Asansol. As a BJP candidate, he defeated the TMC’s Dola Sen in 2014 and repeated the feat in 2019 against actress Moon Moon Sen.
Given that his electoral prowess has been tried and tested in Asansol, it is surprising that the TMC has decided to field him elsewhere.
One factor, according to V. Sivadasan Dasu, is anti-incumbency. “When a leader consecutively keeps winning elections from one seat, negativity also rises. So, maybe Babul was not fit for Asansol.”
Further, he said, Sinha was a familiar face to many in Asansol. “Babul, if you see, lived in Mumbai when he fought elections here in Asansol. So, I don’t feel Sinha will be seen as someone who isn’t from Bengal… 90 per cent of the people here know him.”
‘Doesn’t matter who the candidate is’
The TMC is likely to win the Asansol bypoll easily because of its social schemes, political analyst Bishwanath Ghosh, a political science professor at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, said.
“I frankly don’t see the BJP’s organisational strength in Asansol. The TMC’s social welfare benefits like the Laxmi Bhandars (an income support scheme for women) have primed people to vote for it. Until Opposition parties come up with a strategy to overpower such social schemes, winning a bypoll is also tough,” he said, adding that the Congress and the CPI(M) were not serious contenders since they “don’t even have the organisation to mobilise cadres”.
In this context, according to Ghosh, Shatrughan Sinha is as good a candidate as any.
“It hardly matters if Shatrughan Sinha is the TMC candidate. If I was given a TMC ticket even I would win the byelection. The people will be voting for the party in Asansol, not the candidate,” he said.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Also Read: If Congress wants, we all can fight (2024 elections) together, says Mamata Banerjee