PATNA: Bihar Congress on Sunday received a jolt as its 2019 Lok Sabha election candidate from Patna Sahib seat and Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha ditched the party and agreed to become the West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) candidate for Asansol parliamentary by-polls.
TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee herself announced candidature of Sinha for by-polls in Asansol parliamentary seat through a tweet on Sunday.
“Happy to announce on behalf of the All India Trinamool Congress that Sri Shatrughan Sinha, former Union Minister and famed actor, will be our candidate in Lok Sabha by-election from Asansol," tweeted Banerjee.
By-election in Asansol constituency will be held on April 12. The seat fell vacant after Babul Supriyo vacated it while leaving the BJP to join the TMC soon after the West Bengal state assembly elections.
A well-known Bollywood actor of yesteryears, Sinha had joined the BJP in the early '80s when it was a party of two MPs and served as its star campaigner for nearly two decades during the Atal-Advani-Murli Manohar era. Sinha, however, fell out with the present saffron party leadership and quit the party
Popularly known as Bihari Babu, Sinha joined Congress on April 6, 2019 in the run -up to the general elections after the saffron party denied him candidature from his traditional Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat. He contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Patna Sahib seat as a Congress nominee, but lost the election to BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad (former Union minister) by a huge margin of more than 2.84 lakh votes.
Earlier Sinha had won the same Patna Sahib seat in 2004 and 2009 general elections as the BJP candidate. Prior to entering the Lok Sabha, Sinha was a Rajya Sabha member from Bihar for two consecutive terms (1996 to 2002 and 2002 to 2008). Both times, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha as the BJP candidate. Sinha also served as a Union cabinet minister of health and family welfare and shipping in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Though Bihar Congress leaders are deeply hurt the way Sinha agreed to become the TMC candidate for Asansol by-polls, without formally quitting the grand old party or informing its state leaders; none of the senior leaders of the State Congress were ready to speak on record on the development related to Bihari Babu. “Sinha is a big leader. He joined the Congress in Delhi in presence of the AICC leaders. Now, only the AICC leaders can explain the situation,” a State Congress leader who did not want to be identified, told TOI on Sunday.
Contacted, the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Rajesh Rathorre told TOI on Sunday, “Sinha is a stage artist. He will go wherever he will find money and a stage. Sinha is not a man of any ideology. He himself contested as Congress candidate from Patna Sahib seat, while his wife at the same time (in 2019) contested as the Samajwadi Party candidate from Lucknow Lok Sabha seat.”
