Trinamool Congress on Sunday announced actor Shatrughan Sinha as its candidate for the Asansol Lok Sabha bypoll and singer Babul Supriyo for the bypoll in Ballygunge Assembly seat of West Bengal.
Both Sinha and Supriyo have been Union ministers in Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments. Sinha had quit the BJP in 2019 and Supriyo in 2021.
The Asansol Lok Sabha seat had fallen vacant after Supriyo resigned as the constituency’s MP in October, a month after he had quit the BJP and joined the Trinamool Congress.
Supriyo, who won the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 general elections on a BJP ticket, had quit active politics in July after he was dropped as a Union minister from Narendra Modi’s Cabinet.
Some media reports had suggested in July that Sinha was likely to leave the Congress for the Trinamool Congress, but the actor-turned-politician and the party had not confirmed the switch.
The elections to the Ballygunge Assembly constituency was necessitated after sitting MLA and West Bengal minister Subrata Mukherjee died of a cardiac arrest on November 5.
Byelections to both the seats will be held on April 12, the Election Commission had announced on Saturday. The results will be announced on April 16.
Besides these two seats, polling will also be held in Assembly constituencies of Khairagarh in Chhattisgarh, Bochahan in Bihar and Kolhapur North in Maharasthra.
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