Setback for ‘saffron camp’ in Tolly polls

KOLKATA: In what has been described as one of the most talked-about polls of

Tollywood

’s West Bengal Motion Picture Artists’ Forum involving 1,896 voters, none of the artistes, who joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or renewed their membership last July, has been elected.

However, none of them used their party colours while contesting the polls. They hope that their

vote-share

will increase significantly, if they can work for the members of the industry.

Soumitra Chatterjee had been re-elected uncontested for the post of president. Tapas Chakraborty and Soham Bandyopadhyay were elected as treasurer and assistant treasurer respectively. ·Jeet (1485 votes), Paran Bandyopadhyay (1460 votes) and Soham Chakraborty (1223 votes) were elected as vice-presidents. Arindam Ganguly (1539 votes) was re-elected as general secretary while Sankar Chakraborty (692 votes) was elected as the working president. ·Saptarshi Roy (1566 votes) and Santilal Mukherjee (1513 votes) were elected as joint secretaries. Debdut Ghosh (1064 votes) and Rana Mitra (737 votes) became assistant secretaries. ·Kushal Chakraborty (1297 votes), Sonali Chaudhury (918 votes), June Maliah (879 votes), Sagnik (810 votes) and Diganta Bagchi (805 votes) were elected to the five-member executive council.

In July last year, 11 actors from Tollywood had joined the BJP at the party’s Delhi headquarters while two others (Anjana Basu and Kaushik Chakraborty) renewed their membership. Among the new entrants were Kanchana Moitra, Rupanjana Mitra, Parno Mittra, Lama, Biswajit Ganguly, Moumita Gupta, Sourav Chakraborty, Anindya Pulak Banerjee, Debranjan Nag, Rrishii Kaushik and

Rupa Bhattcharya

. From this list, Sunday’s polls saw the likes of Rupa Bhattacharya, Anjana Basu, Lama, Anindya Banerjee and Kaushik Chakraborty in contention.

However, Monday’s

result sheet

wasn’t flattering for any of them with Anjana (295 votes), Rupa (459 votes), Lama (505 votes), Anindya (575 votes) and Kaushik (711 votes) not managing to bag any win. Actor-turned-BJP member Kanchana Moitra, who voted for the elections, refuses to see this as a setback. “It is the first time that Lama had contested and he got 505 votes. That is a good number for a first-timer. People voted because Rupa worked to get the dues of television artistes. If they continue with their work, their votes are bound to increase next time,” Moitra said.

According to Kaushik, his intention of contesting the polls was to “depoliticise the forum”. “Though I am a BJP member, I have voted for Soham because he can do better for the industry. I do not want any polarisation inside the forum or a particular lobby to make a

clean sweep

. Unless we can counter a lobby, we can’t make this forum apolitical,” Kaushik said.

Though Rupa isn’t ready to look at the polls through the political prism, Lama feels his saffron allegiance might have been an important factor. Not unhappy with his performance at the polls, he said, “This forum doesn’t have any political colour and I was not contesting as a party representative. I didn’t campaign and yet people voted for me because I am accessible and they know that I want to work for the industry. After joining politics, I have the colour of the saffron brigade. That too could be a reason for me not having won the elections.”