The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to get its first Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal when the six Upper House seats will be fought for on July 24. While the Trinamool Congress is expected to win five, it will be BJP’s first RS win from the state by virtue of having 77 MLAs (which has now come down to 70 due to defections).
The BJP’s central leadership has asked the state unit to send their suggestions for probables. It is learnt that five names are being shortlisted which will be sent to 6A, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, after campaigning ends for the panchayat polls in Bengal which have been marred by violence.
MITHUN CHAKRABORTY – THE FILM STAR
Sources say the 73-year-old film star, who joined the BJP ahead of the 2021 assembly elections and has largely campaigned for the party, has himself expressed the wish to represent the party in Rajya Sabha.
While he has represented the Trinamool Congress in Parliament earlier, the disco king has been on an aggressive pitch against the Mamata Banerjee government. Just ahead of his joining in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat went to the film star’s Madh Island residence and spoke for over an hour. It is largely perceived that Bhagwat’s visit was instrumental in Mithun joining BJP.
ANANTA MAHARAJ — VOICE OF ‘SEPARATE NORTH BENGAL’
Another name that the state unit has zeroed in on is Ananta Maharaj, who is the supreme leader of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association. Often considered the voice of North Bengal — a section of the state where the BJP has done relatively well both in the 2019 Lok Sabha as well as the 2021 assembly elections — he has been championing the cause to declare North Bengal as a Union Territory to which many BJP MPs have lent support.
Though BJP has officially refused to associate itself with his cause, it used his demand to allege ‘indifference’ faced by the area under Banerjee’s administration. From Union Home Minister Amit Shah to TMC ministers, several have visited him, which shows his clout in the area under which fall a number of assembly constituencies.
Earlier, he placed a condition on supporting BJP in exchange of fulfilling his demand, “Now The Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association will consider supporting the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections based on this issue.”
ANIRBAN GANGULY — AMIT SHAH’s BIOGRAPHER
Anirban Ganguly is honorary director at Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation (SPMRF) — the New Delhi-based think tank of the BJP. He is also a member of BJP’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and part of Bengal BJP’s Core Committee. But what sets him apart is his unparalleled equation with Amit Shah.
Ganguly penned the official biography of Shah named ‘Amit Shah and the March of BJP’. Soft spoken, as fluent in Bengali as he is in English, and considered an intellectual for his grasp over policy issues, Ganguly fits the bill for the BJP to represent Bengal in the Rajya Sabha. Sources say, in the last Bengal assembly election, it was Shah who insisted that Ganguly take the electoral plunge.
SWAPAN DASGUPTA — THE JOURNALIST
Dasgupta is a journalist-turned-politician. Having worked in some of the prominent dailies of India, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha. But he resigned and contested unsuccessfully during the 2021 Bengal election. Dasgupta is everything that today’s BJP doesn’t stand for — La Martinere pass-out, Oxford-educated individual with fine taste and an accent. But on the contrary, he also created room for Center-right discourse that BJP represents, at a time and in a society where it wasn’t welcome, in Dasgupta’s own words. Dasgupta led the first edition of the Delhi University Literature Festival as its festival director. In one sentence, what Shashi Tharoor is to the Congress, Swapan Dasgupta is to the BJP.
BHARATI GHOSH — THE CONTROVERSIAL IPS OFFICER
She is the last on the list but certainly the most interesting one. Bharati Ghosh was an Indian Police Service personnel who served in Bengal under Mamata Banerjee and shared an extraordinary rapport with her. So much so, she once called Banerjee “Ma, Jangalmahal er Ma” (Mother, Mother of Jangal Mahal). However, Ghosh’s relationship soon soured with Banerjee, so much so that there were raids conducted on her.
She switched to BJP and started targeting the TMC. She had charges like corruption, extortion, forgery and criminal conspiracy brought against her by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). But Ghosh also has an image of a woman who is taking on another woman leader — a trope the BJP loves to exploit. This is why she was fielded as a candidate in the 2021 Bengal election.
Those News18 tried to speak with refused to come on record. Either they claimed they were unaware of the names or replied with a simple ‘no comment’. Bharati Ghosh, when contacted, told News18: “It is completely a party matter. I have no comments to make.”
Once the high-voltage campaigning for Bengal’s panchayat election gets over, the list will be reviewed and sent by Sukanta Majumder, Bengal BJP chief, to the party headquarters. But as one leader, in the midst of a busy campaign schedule, told News18: “These are the five names we have shortlisted. But whom to choose or whether to pick someone altogether different, is New Delhi’s call.”
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