Rachana Banerjee’s Foot-In-Mouth Moments Give Rivals More Ammo For Lok Sabha Battle

Kolkata: Actor-turned-politician Rachana Banerjee has been receiving flaks for her weird remarks and bizarre poll promises since being nominated as Trinamool Congress candidate from Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency.

During a rally on Sunday, she said that the women from Hooghly LS seat will get preference in getting featured in “Didi No. 1”, which she hosts. “If I win, my first task will be to have a meeting with the channel authorities which host the show. I will tell them to give first preference to the women of Hooghly. I will tell them that first the women from Hooghly will be featured in the show and then only others will be featured,” she said.

A political greenhorn, Banerjee, has made some puerile comments since the beginning of her campaign, giving her opponents effective weapons in their counter-campaigns.

She had fuelled the counter-campaign against her by saying that people of Hooghly are proud to have her among them. She also drew criticism and was called out for being ‘insensitive’ for questioning the real identity of the women at Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, protesting against sexual harassment by a section of the local Trinamool Congress leadership.

She again hogged limelight with her comment on Singur, where Tata Motors had planned to manufacture its most affordable and smallest car Nano, and how the movement which ended the 34-year Left Front rule in West Bengal in 2011 inspires her.

Targeting her, her political opponent had then said, “The Singur movement might have fulfilled Mamata Banerjee’s dreams to become the Chief Minister of West Bengal, but what is the condition of the people there right now? There is neither industry nor agriculture in Singur.”

The contest here is between two film stars-turned-politicians and CPI(M)’s young state committee member and trade union activist Monodip Ghosh, who like Banerjee, is a first-timer in electoral politics.

Banerjee (49) had become a household name in Odisha in the 1990s with her movies opposite Sidhant Mohapatra with whom she subsequently tied the knot. They ended their marriage at a family court in Cuttack in 2004. Both have since married again.

Among her popolar movies are Santan, Lakshman Rekha, Sakala Tirtha To Charane, Bhai Hela Bhagari, Lakhe Siba Puji Paichi Pua, Subhadra, Ganga Jamuna, and Pua Mora Bhola Sankar.