Babul Supriyo: From singer to BJP’s poster boy to Mamata’s minister

By PTI

KOLKATA: Babul Supriyo, who was on Wednesday sworn in as a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet, has had a roller-coaster trip, from being a well-liked playback singer to BJP’s poster boy in West Bengal to becoming a member of the TMC authorities.

Supriyo began off as a metropolis banker who rose to be a BJP minister on the Centre after an opportunity assembly with yoga guru Ramdev, however instantly discovered himself out within the chilly after shedding an meeting election from Tollygunge final 12 months by an enormous margin of fifty,000 votes.

However, Supriyo bounced again to win the distinguished Ballygunge constituency in April for his new social gathering the Trinamool Congress which he joined in September 2021 in a shock transfer.

Born in West Bengal’s Uttarpara as Supriya Baral in 1970, he modified his identify to Babul Supriyo whereas attempting his luck as a Bollywood singer after quitting his banking job.

After a profitable stint as a Hindi playback singer, Supriyo entered politics in 2014, getting a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections for the BJP from West Bengal on Ramdev’s suggestion.

He shocked everybody by defeating TMC’s Dola Sen from the commercial city of Asansol and was made the Union Minister of State for Urban Development.

Two years later, he was shifted to the Ministry for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises throughout a reshuffle in July 2016.

In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Supriyo’s successful streak continued when he defeated TMC’s Moon Moon Sen by an enormous margin of 1.97 lakh votes.

This time the Bollywood singer was named the Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Supriyo was once more pitted in April 2021, because the BJP candidate for Tollygunge Assembly constituency, which has as its centerpiece the film studio often known as Tollywood, towards three-time TMC MLA Aroop Biswas.

The two-time BJP MP had then promised he would finish Biswas’s dictatorship in Tollywood.

However, this time spherical his streak of luck appeared to have run out.

Supriyo misplaced by over 50,000 votes.

Things additionally began going bitter in his relationship with BJP’s high management and he was ultimately dropped from the Union Cabinet.

The perturbed 50-year-old singer, whose instinctive first response was that he would give up politics after being dropped from the ministry, finally joined the TMC after social gathering supremo Mamata Banerjee and common secretary Abhishek Banerjee prolonged a proposal to him.

“It was with great disillusionment that I had announced that I would quit politics. A great opportunity has been extended by Didi (Mamata Banerjee) and Abhishek Banerjee and I am happy to accept that. I was expecting something more after seven years as a Union Minister of State. Then differences started growing with the party,” Supriyo had mentioned after becoming a member of the TMC final 12 months.

Though his victory in Ballygunge earlier this 12 months was marred by a marketing campaign of no vote for Supriyo undertaken by some teams within the constituency, Supriyo, true to his curler coaster model gained the seat by over 20,000 votes towards his CPI(M) rival Saira Shah Halim, who emerged within the second place.

Interestingly, his former social gathering’s Keya Ghosh got here a distant third.