Bengal celebs ‘hot cakes’ for TMC, BJP for poll gamble

By Soudhriti BhabaniKolkata, March 18 (IANS) In poll-bound West Bengal, local Tollywood celebrities — be it on television or big screens — appear to be the hottest properties for political parties ahead of the high-octane state assembly elections.As poll temperatures soar, key political parties in West Bengal opened doors to local cine-stars virtually offering them an alternative career path to join the mainstream electoral politics.The warring camps of both the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have banked upon the star-power by fielding several popular figures in the fray. A slew of Bengali celebrities also joined the parties and were immediately offered Assembly seats to contest the polls. Both – TMC and BJP – are now harping on their celebrity candidates.Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress had already announced the candidate list featuring Tollywood actors like Kanchan Mallick, Sayani Ghosh, Soham Chakraborty, June Malliah, director Raj Chakraborty etc.The Trinamool supremo had fielded actor Kanchan Mallick, who had joined the Trinamool Congress just a few days back, from Hooghly’s Uttarpara; Soham Chakraborty from Chandipur; director Raj Chakraborty from Barrackpore; actress Sayantika from Bankura; June Malliah from Midnapore sadar; Sayani Ghosh from Asansol south; cricketer Manoj Tiwari from Howrah’s Shibpur and Kaushani Mukherjee from Krishnanagar north assembly constituency.”I have given importance to young people this time while choosing the name of candidates. They all are young people,” Banerjee had said while releasing the Trinamool candidate list. The Trinamool supremo had accommodated about 40 per cent new faces including the Bengali celebs.Interestingly, Trinamool Congress had also organised a unique workshop for celebrities where party’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien trained all newly-inducted Tollywood personalities how to do campaigns and win hearts of general voters. The workshop had continued for over one and half hours and it was attended by director Raj Chakraborty, Sudeshna Roy, actor Manali Dey, Sourav Das, Ranita Das, Sreetama Bhattacharya and many others.Last month a bunch of Bengali film industry representatives like actor Yash Dasgupta, Soumili Ghosh Biswas, Papiya Adhikari, Minakshi Ghosh, Sutapa Mukherjee, Tramila Bhattacharya and Mallika Bannerjee, director Raj Mukherjee, producer-director Atanu Roy and music director Subhayu Bedoggo had joined the saffron camp, with barely a few weeks remaining for the state Assembly elections.Actor Hiran Chatterjee, who was known as a Trinamool insider, also joined the BJP and was seen campaigning with the party’s state unit president Dilip Ghosh in Malda and South Dinajpur district last month. Hiran was fielded from Kharagpur-Sadar assembly seat on a BJP ticket while actress Papiya Adhikari will be contesting from Uluberia-South, Payel Sarkar from Behala-East and Yash Dasgupta from Chanditala in Hooghly district.If the right-wing forces are scoring on local celebrity quotient, how can the Left parties be far behind?On February 28 in a mega show at Kolkata’s brigade parade ground, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) had also showcased a number of celebrities like actor Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Badsha Moitra, director Aneek Dutta, Kamaleswar Mukherjee etc who openly campaigned for the Left-Congress-Indian Secular Front (ISF) secular democratic alliance. But interestingly, they have not pitted any of celeb candidate in the crucial fray so far.–IANSsbn/in