This is neither a dissident nor a rebel for she has the blessings of the original Didi in the party. Here is another Banerjee, an younger one whose claim to fame can be traced from the small screen where she anchors a popular television show "Didi number 1" ; Rachana Banerjee has been fielded from Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency. Rachana is pitted against BJP candidate and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee. Incidentally, the two poll opponents have shared screen space in several Bengali films.

Rachana has justifiably earned her stripes read candidature in a political outfit in which proximity to the party supremo can earn one brownie points. Significantly, she has interviewed the chief minister and party supremo in her show Didi number one before the names of the candidates were announced.

Time was when West Bengal was known for integrity and ideological strength of poll candidates cutting across the political divide, but glamour quotient has started making its way in the list of electoral candidates when Trinamool Congress started emerging as a political force in the state. Feeling the dearth of ideologically committed candidates to contest elections, TMC started roping in popular film stars as poll candidates in the hope of encashing their popularity to get a favourable verdict from voters.

It started with fielding popular Bengali film hero Tapas Paul from the now defunct Alipur Assembly segment one of whose voters was then TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee. The trend continues. Paul found himself being elected MP from Krishnanagar and hitting the headlines after threatening the activists of a rival political outfit. Meanwhile, the ranks of TMC continued to be swelled by actors from Tollywood and Bollywood.

If Paul's was a success story as a Trinamool candidate that of Madhabi Mukherjee of the Congress was not especially after her loss at the Jadavpur Assembly segment to the then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Her appeal to the voters as Satyajit Ray's most successful heroine cast in Charulata, Mahanagar and Kapurush could not dent Bhattacharjee's vote bank manned by well oiled organization during that period of glory for CPI(M).

But TMC had set in a trend. Despite it having met with mixed success, it continued with it especially having replaced Congress as the principal Opposition party in the state. Be it Assembly or Lok Sabha elections, film stars continued to be parachuted as TMC nominees. Be it Nayana Bandopadhyay or Debasree Roy, Sandhya Roy or Satabdi Roy, what was once a novel experiment became an accepted practice to cover up ideological shortcomings.

Political observers feel that fielding of film stars in the electoral arena is a way to camouflage ideological weaknesses of a political outfit. Pitted against the Left who have always have a strong ideological foundation, the TMC found a sure shot way of covering its doctrinal lapses.

The entry of film stars in the electoral arena is in no way a one way traffic. Having moved from their profession which invited adulation into a field of public which sometimes turned hostile, these film stars turned legislators lap up the loaves and fishes of office including government accommodation and hospitality in the districts at the time of outdoor shooting which enhances the demand of these film stars.

Fielding film personalities was not the one thing either during Congress or Left Front regime. If Satyajit Ray film Mahanagar hero Anil Chatterjee had become a legislator with CPI(M) support, it was an exception as the trend did not continue.

Politics is serious business and silver screen figures should maintain distance from it was the accepted thinking in Left circles. Ideologically strong that it considered itself, the LF felt confident that it could dispense with the glamour quotient in its candidates' list and see anybody its nominee through the electoral race on organisational strength.

But as it struck roots, the TMC regime changed the rules of the game. Come 2014 elections, yesteryear stars like Moonmoon Sen and Sandhya Roy removed their grease paint and entered the hurly burly of electoral politics Satabdi Roy was already a veteran by then.

Having started a trend and seeing people making not only a beeline for a screen personality's rally and voting for him/her en masse, the TMC feels no reason to discontinue the practice of nominating an actor as election candidate. Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, both Tollywood actresses won with substantial margins from Jadavpur and Basirhat Lok Sabha as TMC candidates in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The trend continues as yesteryear Bollywood film star Shatrughan Sinha has been fielded from Asansol by TMC.. In fact, he replaced music composer Babul Supriyo who resigned from the Lok Sabha and BJP to join TMC. Sinha has been parachuted to Asansol despite having been a BJP MP from Patna Sahib seat from Bihar earlier.. He fell out with the saffron camp leadership and joined Trinamool Congress.

Silver screen stars have continued to be the choice of the TMC leadership. Small wonder, Deepak Adhikari better known as Deb and Satabdi Roy, actors both, find themselves renominated from Ghatal and Birbhum Lok Sabha constituencies respectively this year.

Roy has been the sitting MP from Birbhum Lok Sabha since 2009 parliamentary polls when this seat had been a CPI(M) bastion. But with her girl next door image and charm, Roy with several hits with Tapas Paul (another film star turned TMC MP ) and having essayed the role of an acid attack victim in Tapan Sinha directed Atanka has been on a winning spree from Birbhum. 2024 Lok Sabha polls will be her fourth term.

Fielded from Ghatal Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Deepak Adhikari aka Deb demonstrated even though a newcomer, he was not a novice in the intricacies of election campaigning. He promptly visited his political rival, the CPI candidate's home, befriended his young son giving him his WhatsApp number and asking him to whenever he felt contact him.. Deb is pitted against Hiran, a BJP nominee who is also an actor. The TMC candidate who wanted to quit politics but changed his mind ast the request of Mamata.

Reverting to Hooghly, the choice of Rachana taking on Locket cannot be stated to be unwise. Taking care of her duties of a people's representative, Locket was away from the screens big and small while Rachana as the hostess of a popular television talk show held her viewers in thrall.

Going by this logic, Rachana is the more recognizable face in Hooghly than her big screen electoral rival. After all, unlike a visit to a film running in a local theatre once in a while Banerjee's talk show is telecast every week and watched by a much larger audience than a theatre hall.

Having carefully read the mindset of the voters, the TMC nominees are only too aware of the star power giving them a leg up in the coming polls. So are the saffron camp nominees from the silver screen while both the Left and the Congress candidates are shorn of this advantage which does not boil down to a level playing field in the days to come. (IPA Service)