Friday, March 29, 2024

Bengal polls: Actor Yash Dasgupta, six others from Tollywood join BJP

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By Express News Service
KOLKATA: The BJP’s Bengal’s chapter has inducted seven popular Bengali film and serial actors on Wednesday saying that the party made inroads into the culture and entertainment circle of the state.

The BJP inducted Yash Dasgupta, the actor who is also known as TMC MP Nusrat Jahan’s close friend, along with six others. Earlier, the party had welcomed five other actors from Bengal’s film industry, popularly known as Tollywood.

Sources in the BJP said the move to bring actors to the party fold was initiated to counter TMC’s strategy which proved successful in previous elections.

In the 2011 Assembly elections, the TMC made the first move by fielding actress Debasree Roy who defeated veteran CPI(M) contender Kanti Ganguly in South 24-Parganas’ Raidighi constituency. In the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, the party fielded five actors — Moon Moon Sen, Dipak Adhikari, Sandhya Roy, Shatabdi Roy, and Tapas Pal — who all won from their constituencies. Even in the 2019 general elections, the TMC sent its two elected actors — Mimi Chakrabarty and Nusrat Jahan — to the Lower House of Parliament.

Bengali actor Yash Dasgupta joins Bharatiya Janata Party, in Kolkata pic.twitter.com/GUyC6j9rmy
— ANI (@ANI) February 17, 2021

“We will pay the TMC back in their own coin in the upcoming election. In some of the seats, the TMC was also surprised after the actors defeated their heavyweight contestants. We are also going to field the actors in the upcoming elections against TMC’s candidates,” said a BJP leader.

In 2014, Moon Moon Sen had defeated nine-time CPI(MP) Basudeb Acharia in Bankura Constituency. The CPI’s heavyweight candidate Prabodh Panda failed to retain his Midnapore seat in the same year as TMC’s strategy of fielding actress Sandhya proved successful.

Asked whether the newly-inducted actors will contest in the Assembly elections, BJP’s national general secretary and West Bengal observer Kailash Vijayvargiya said it would depend on them. “The BJP is aimed at a change in Bengal and the bunch of actors joined the party to be part of the initiative,” said Vijayvargiya.   

The saffron camp has been trying to make inroads in Bengal’s culture clan, where the ruling party has already made deep penetration. Union Home minister Amit Shah had visited vocalist Ajay Chakrabarty’s residence last year and Vijayvargiya Ustad Rashid Khan to woo the support of the particular sets of electorates.

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