As Trinamool Congress battles rebellion within its ranks, reports claim that Sayoni Ghosh, actor-turned-MP, has become the latest leader to ditch Mamata Banerjee to join the rebel camp. Leader of TMC’s rebel gang in Parliament, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, confirmed to the media the speculations that 33-year-old Sayoni Ghosh, a close confidante of both TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, would join them.
The rebel camp claims that more than 20 MPs are with them, and 16 were physically present at the meeting at BJP leader Bhupendra Yadav’s residence held last week. The rebel MPs were led by Kakoli and senior leader Satabdi Roy.
Interestingly, with Sayoni joining the rebel camp, almost all celebrities chosen by Mamata have ditched her. Mamata Banerjee’s political strategy over the last decade has heavily centred around handpicking celebrities to contest elections. While her ‘Tollywood Brigade’ included actors, directors and even a cricketer, Mamata has placed her trust in celebrities in areas where she couldn’t find the perfect candidate. However, she has been criticised for the strategy, with many claiming this was a ploy to deal with infighting within the party. In many cases, when there were too many aspirants, Mamata opted to field an outsider.
However, seems like the Tollywood Brigade is not coming to her rescue this time. Besides Sayoni Ghosh and Satabdi Roy, actress-turned-Medinipur MP June Malia, and cricketer Yusuf Pathan have also joined the rebel camp. Hooghly MP Rachana Banerjee, a famous television presenter, and Kalipada Soren, a playwright and author who was elected as MP from Jhargram, have also switched sides.
One of Bengal’s biggest film stars, Dev Adhikari, who won from the Ghatal seat as TMC MP, too, has joined the rebels. Bollywood superstar Shatrughan Sinha too is now with the rebels.
