Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) sprung a surprise on Sunday by naming ‘outsider’ Shatrughan Sinha as its candidate for the Lok Sabha by-election from West Bengal’s Asansol constituency.
The 75-year-old Shatrughan has had an eventful stint as politician after a long and successful acting career.
He won back-to-back Lok Sabha elections from Bihar’s Patna Sahib (2004 and 2009), after being a Rajya Sabha member from 1996 to 2008. Shatrughan was also a two-time Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government between 2002 and 2004.
After a near-two decade association with BJP, Shatrughan joined Congress in 2019. But that stint was shortlived, and he switched over to TMC, under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership.
This is the first time that Shatrughan will be contesting in polls from outside his home state Bihar or Delhi. His political career had started with a fight against fellow-actor and dear friend Rajesh Khanna in New Delhi by-election in 1992. Though Rajesh won that election, he didn’t speak with Shatrughan for a long time as he was upset with his friend for taking him on.
The Asansol parliamentary seat fell vacant after the resignation of Babul Supriyo last year. The singer and former Union minister won twice from Asansol (2014 and 2019) representing BJP, before joining Trinamool in July 2021.
Babul was named TMC’s candidate for the Ballygunge Vidhan Sabha bypolls which has been necessitated following the death of veteran legislature Subrata Mukherjee.
The by-polls are scheduled to be held on April 12.
