After Bengal poll flop show, question looms over Mithun Chakraborty redux

With Mithun’s meeting with the Bengal BJP brass in Kolkata taking place a day after the conclusion of the party’s national executive meeting in Hyderabad, the political circles was abuzz with questions about his possible role in the principal Opposition’s affairs with the Lok Sabha elections about one-year-nine-month away now.

The BJP may consider him sending to the Rajya Sabha from Bengal. But the key question making the rounds in the state BJP is whether the 72-year-old erstwhile Bollywood star would be now able to boost the party after having failed in his first shot during the high-stakes electoral battle last year.

Since its Assembly polls setback, the BJP saw five of its MLAs and two MPs defect to the TMC, with the faction-ridden party leadership failing to stem the exit of local leaders across the state. The party has since also failed to win any of 108 municipalities where the polls were held in March. It has even lagged behind the CPM-led Left Front in many of these civic polls swept by the TMC.

বিজেপি বাংলায় ৫৫ লক্ষ থেকে ২কোটি ২৮ লক্ষ ভোট পেয়েছে! এই ফলাফল থেকে নিরাশ হওয়ার কিছু নেই : শ্রী @mithunda_off pic.twitter.com/w9pQM0lHxe

— BJP Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) July 5, 2022

Both Mithun and the state BJP leadership refrained from spelling out the specifics. “The party has given me a big responsibility. I am looking forward to it. I cannot say anything more on this right now. But I am not a politician, I am a humanitarian. I want to work for the people of Bengal and I will do it. I have come here at the instruction of the party president. I am a small worker of my party. I will work as per the instruction of the central leadership,” Mithun told a news conference at the state BJP office following his meeting with party leaders.

A senior BJP leader said, “His comeback will definitely boost the morale of our workers at the grassroots who are demoralised following party’s lack of electoral success in Bengal.”

It is another matter that Mithun had failed to boost the BJP’s prospects in the crucial Assembly polls ahead of which he had, on March 7 last year, joined the BJP at a high-profile rally attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground. Addressing the rally then, Mithun, while rendering some dialogues from some of his hit films, said, “Marbo ekhane, laash porbe shoshaney (I will hit you here and your body will fall in the crematorium)” and “Ek choboley chobi (Just one snake bite and you will turn into a photograph)”. After the poll results, an FIR was also filed against him over such remarks. Such charges against him were however quashed by the Calcutta High Court later.

In the Asansol Lok Sabha bypoll held in April this year, Mithun had made an appeal to the voters to support the party’s candidate Agnimitra Paul but the TMC’s candidate Shatrughan Sinha, the Bollywood actor-turned-politician, won the poll with a massive margin.

BJP candidate Agnimitra Paul during a roadshow in Asansol. (Express photo by Partha Paul)

Mithun’s return to the state political arena has drawn sharp reactions from the BJP’s rival parties.

The TMC’s mouthpiece “Jago Bangla” slammed Mithun in its editorial, charging that “A chameleon has some character but he (Mithun) does not have any character. The TMC gave him respect and made him a Rajya Sabha member but he did not pay back. He surrendered to the RSS.”

TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said, “I have heard that Mithun da has been crying in front of central (BJP) leaders to give him a post. When Didi (Mamata Banerjee) nominated him for the Rajya Sabha he said he will never forget her gesture. Then he backstabbed Didi. He should first apologise to her.”

The state Congress president, Adhir Chowdhury, said, “The BJP aims to woo rural voters by having Mithun render his movie dialogues before them. But, it will not happen. It just shows the bankruptcy of the saffron party.”

CPM leader Sujan Chakraborty said, “We never used Mithun Chakraborty at a political platform. But, TMC and BJP always did so.”