West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Sunday that former Union minister and Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha would be the TMC's candidate for the upcoming bypoll to the Asansol Lok Sabha seat.
The bypoll to Asansol constituency was necessitated by the resignation of Babul Supriyo, its MP, in October last year. Supriyo quit as he left the BJP to join the TMC.
Mamata tweeted Supriyo would be the TMC candidate for the bypoll to the Ballygunge assembly seat. Supriyo had contested the 2021 assembly elections from Tollygunge, but lost to Aroop Biswas of the TMC by nearly 50,000 votes.
Bypolls to the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and assembly seats of Ballygunge, Khairagarh (Chhattisgarh), Bochahan (Bihar) and Kolhapur North (Maharashtra) will be held on April 12. Counting of votes will take place on April 16.
Contesting for the TMC marks yet another political shift for Shatrughan Sinha. Sinha joined the BJP soon after it was formed in 1980. In his time as a Rajya Sabha MP, Sinha was minister of health and shipping in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government from 2002 to 2004. He won the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat in Bihar in the Lok Sabha polls in 2009 and 2014.
Sinha became a critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a few years after he came to power. He joined the Congress in 2019 as he was denied the BJP ticket for Patna Sahib in the Lok Sabha polls. Sinha got the Congress ticket for Patna Sahib, but lost to Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP.
Sinha had indicated last year he could join the TMC, given his friendship with Mamata Banerjee.
Sinha is thought to have a good chance of winning from Asansol given the substantial presence of natives of Bihar in the constituency. Moreover, his reputation as a 'Modi basher' is expected to benefit Mamata's campaign against the BJP.
(With inputs from Rabi Banerjee)
