BJP Fails to Make Inroads in Bengal Artists' Forum Elections

Kolkata, Feb 10 (PTI) The BJP failed to make inroads in the West Bengal Motion Picture Artists' Forum elections as actors considered close to the Trinamool Congress and the Left Front emerged winners to various posts on Monday.

The Trinamaool Congress welcomed the results, while the BJP said the results have proved the "unholy nexus of Left Front and the TMC".

According to the results announced on Monday, actors Anjana Basu, Anindya Pulak Banerjee, Sourav Chakravorty, Rupa Bhattacharya and Kaushik Chakraborty - who joined to BJP after the Lok Sabha polls - lost in the hustings.

Actor Soham Chakraborty, June Maliah, Sonali Chaudhury who are close to the TMC won the elections.

While Soham got elected as vice president along with Jeet and Paran Bandyopadhyay, Arindam Ganguly and Sankar Chakraborty, not known to be part of any camp, were elected as general secretary and working president of the organisation, founded in 1998, respectively.

Similarly known apolitical faces like Saptarshi Roy and Santilal Mukherjee were elected as joint secretaries, while Debdut Ghosh, known as a Left sympathizer and Rana Mitra became assistant secretaries.

Among others Tapas Chakraborty and Soham Bandyopadhyay were elected as treasurer and assistant treasurer respectively, while Kushal Chakraborty, Sonali Chaudhury, June Maliah, Sagnik Chatterjee and Diganta Bagchi were elected to the five-member executive council.

"The elections showed that actors of Tollygunge industry have never been influenced by political identity of the contenders. The forum had never belonged to any political camp, nor will it be so in future," Kushal Chakraborty, one of the five elected executive council member, told PTI.

Actor Suman Bandyopadhyay, known to be close to BJP, also said "Artists Forum had always sought to keep the organisation out of the purview of politics. And the election showed members of the industry shared the same perception."

An industry source said the results showed that voters had opted for their favourite candidates and political considerations did not have any role to play but interestingly none close to BJP could win.

Of the 2,500 registered members, around 1,930 votes were cast for eight posts of working president, vice- president, general secretary, joint secretary, assistant secretary on Sunday and five-member executive committee.

Veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee had been re-elected uncontested for the post of president.

The elections assumed significance this year as many actors of the Bengali entertainment industry - Rishi Kaushik, Parno Mitra, Kanchana Moitra, Rupanjana Mitra, Biswajit Ganguly, Anindya Pulak Banerjee, Sourav Chakravorty, Rupa Bhattacharya, Anjana Basu and Kaushik Chakraborty had joined the BJP after the saffron party won 18 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal last year.

The Trinamool Congress has celebrity MPs like Mimi Chakraborty, Nusrat Jahan and Dev and actors like June Malia, Indrani Halder, Rudranil Ghosh and director-actor Arindam Sil in its fold.

Reacting to the results, state minister Aroop Biswas said the election results has proved that the BJP has been "rejected" by the artists of the state.

West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the results has "proved an unholy nexus of TMC and CPI(M)".

According to state BJP sources, the saffron camp failed to make inroads due to its won infighting as there were two organisations affiliated to BJP, which were trying to woo the artists since the results of last Lok Sabha polls.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)