Despite the recent grand roadshow and the thunderous response generated by Mithun Chakraborty’s presence on the stage, his name remained missing from the list of candidates announced by the BJP for the upcoming West Bengal elections.
The list, which could probably be the final one, includes 13 names without the mention of the famous ‘Dada’ of Bengal cinema who was expected to contest for the Rashbehari seat. Instead, the BJP has listed retired Lieutenant General in-charge of Kashmir during the important years, Subrata Saha, as their candidate for the region.
Earlier, BJP sources had said that the actor was the only contestant for the south Kolkata seat where he also owns an army of fans. The same was getting speculated ever since Mr Chakraborty shared the dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 7th during the party’s rally in the Brigade Parade Ground in the capital of West Bengal.
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The actor had delivered his popular dialogues and come up with a new one at the same place. “I will hit you here and your body will land at the crematorium,” he said as an excerpt from his Bengali film MLA Fatakeshto. His new line was, “I am not a harmless water snake or a harmless desert snake. I am a pure cobra. With one strike, I will turn you into a photograph,” drawing massive cheers from the crowd.
To add to it, the actor had also changed his voter identity from Mumbai to Kolkata in the recent weeks, hinting at his naming as a party candidate for one of the regions. However, the present scenario has ditched the hopes of it for the time being as there are chances of the actor replacing an existing candidate anytime till April. This comes as the Bengal elections are slated to last for 8 phases with mid-April being the last date for submitting the final nomination list for the last phase.
His fans, though, will still get to see Mr. Chakraborty as he is all set to campaign on March 30th in Nandigram for Suvendu Adhikari. Apart from him, Union Minister Amit Shah is also expected to be a part of the rally.
In terms of other nominations, former Chief Economic Advisor Ashok Lahiri fielded previously from Alipurduar in North Bengal and later replaced by another person has been put back as a contestant from Balurghat.
Another major change in the list is the mention of new candidate Subrata Thakur as the contestant from Gaighata in the North 24 Parganas district. The man is Shantanu Thakur’s brother who is the BJP MP representing the Matua community. Sources say he was disappointed with BJP as it did not implement the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and left their citizenship hopes mid-air.
Moreover, he was also told to be upset with no Matua community person named in the 30-40 seats of the regions dominated by them. Subrata Thakur’s name is reported to have been added after Shantana Thakur met Amit Shah yesterday and the party pushed him for the seat.
There are also other changes in the list as those mentioned earlier said they never gave their consent to be BJP’s candidates. One of them was Shikha Mitra, the former Trinamool MLA from Chowringhee and the wife of the late Congress leader Somen Mitra. She was fuming after the party listed her for Chowringhee without asking her permission. As for the Kashipore-Belgachia seat, an active Trinamool member was mentioned as the candidate for BJP.
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The party has put forwards its 3 candidates for Darjeeling, Kurseong, and Kalimpong. The seat of Darjeeling is given to Raju Bishta where BJP had joined hands with Gorkha Janmukti Morcha previously. As the community has now allied with Trinamool, BJP has to fight through its own candidates now.
