The Bengal election getting interesting day by day. Now the reel life heroes and heroines whose life was limited within the light, camera and action mode are now trying their luck on the real election battle ground.
Keeping in mind the popularity of the cine actors and actress, different political parties are also trying to get them into their fold. National award winner Actor Mithun Chakraborty joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election rally at the Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata on Sunday. BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh and others welcomed Mithun Chakraborty to the party.
Ghosh handed over the party flag to Chakraborty. After this, the actor, who was awarded the National Award, said that he always wanted to work for the underprivileged and the BJP has given him a platform to fulfill his aspirations. He also said that he is proud to be a Bengali.
Bengal has long history of cine actors and actress turning to politics. In 2014, Tapas Pal, one of the popular Bengali cine artists was elected to the Lok Sabha. He contested and won Krishannagar constituency with Trinamool Congress (TMC) ticket. In 2019 elections, actress Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakraborty also proved their popularity and translated it into votes.
Renowned Bengali actress Nusrat Jahan was proved as a favorites among the voters as she won against BJP's Sayantan Basu by a margin of 3, 50, 369 votes from The Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency on TMC ticket.
Another actress Mimi Chakraborty who had replaced Sugata Bose fetched big in all the seven assembly segments and won 6.9 lakh votes, defeating BJP’s Anupam Hazra. She eclipsing Trinamool’s 2014 margin of 1.25 lakh votes in the process.
The victory of these two actresses had started a new trend in Bengal politics. Seeing their political growth many cine stars had shown interest in politics. This time too there seems to be a competition among the cine stars to get into politics. Recently Srabanti Chatterjee has joined BJP in the presence of state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh and party's election in-charge in the state, Kailash Vijayvargiya.
“Earlier I have done campaigning for Didi but I joined BJP this time because I like their ideology and I feel that if I will go with BJP I can do something for the people”. Srabanti Chatterjee, who recently joined the BJP camp said. When asked whether she is interested to contest or not she said, ”Yes I am interested to contest but whatever work my party will assign to me I will do accordingly,” she added.
BJP’s election in-charge in the state, Kailash Vijayvargiya said, “Successful people in Bengal who have done good work in their respective fields, be a doctor, an engineer, or an actor, or an artist, who have a chance to win for their popularity may get tickets.”
Like Srabanti, Payal Sarkar, along with many other cine personalities, joined the BJP last week in the presence BJP national president JP Nadda ahead of the Assembly polls. Prior to this, actors Yash Dasgupta and Hiran Chatterjee and couple of television celebrities had also joined the saffron brigade.
In other hand, actor cum director Dheeraj Pandit along with actress Subhadra Mukherjee and popular singer Aditi Munsi have joined TMC. Last month Bengali actress Kausani Mukherjee along with Actress Sayani Ghosh and a couple of cine and tele stars have also joined Didi’s camp.
“Didi lives in our hearts; I don't think anyone else can think of artists as much as Didi thinks for us. I feel happy and blessed that I have joined her party and got an opportunity to contribute something in this battle,” singer Aditi Munsi said.
For this, if I have been able to become a small soldier of Didi's party, I will be happy, she said.
Since the Bengal assembly elections are approaching, cine and tele stars of Bengal have seen queuing up in all political camps, mostly in TMC and BJP. Now it is yet to be seen how much these celebrities would convert their popularity into votes.