New Delhi. Shatrughan Sinha is the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate from Asansol (General) Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal in the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections. A total of seven candidates are contesting from the Asansol seat in the 2024 parliamentary elections. Famous Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha, who became very popular in Hindi films due to his unique style of dialogue delivery, used to be the star campaigner of BJP in the ‘Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani era’, but later due to change in political equations, he called this party ‘silent’ and joined first Congress and then Trinamool Congress.
Sinha won the Asansol seat in the current Lok Sabha elections by defeating his nearest rival BJP’s S S Ahluwalia by a margin of more than 59 thousand votes. Sinha has been a member of Rajya Sabha twice and Lok Sabha thrice and has also been a Union Minister. However, in his political career, he was defeated once from New Delhi Lok Sabha seat by Hindi film superstar and Congress candidate Rajesh Khanna and then from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency by BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Sinha entered electoral politics for the first time in 1992 after a career in films spanning nearly three decades. In fact, Advani won two seats (Gandhinagar and New Delhi) in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, but he vacated the New Delhi seat. Due to this, Sinha contested on a BJP ticket in the by-election held in 1992, but he had to face defeat by less than two thousand votes from one-time superstar and Congress candidate Rajesh Khanna.
According to the Parliament Secretariat website, Sinha was born on July 15, 1946 in Patna. After getting a Bachelor’s degree in Science from the city’s famous Patna Science College, he got a diploma in acting from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. After getting a lot of fame in his film career, when Sinha entered politics, the BJP welcomed him with open arms and made him their star campaigner. It is believed that he was close to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the then Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani.
Sinha’s parliamentary career began in 1996, when he was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha from Bihar. Sinha was re-elected to the Upper House in 2002. He was first the Minister of Health and Family Welfare (July 2002 to 29 January 2003) in the Vajpayee government. He was then made the Minister of Shipping (from 29 January 2003 to May 2004).
Taking advantage of Sinha’s popularity, the BJP fielded him from Patna Sahib seat in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, in which he won with a huge margin. After this, he repeated this success from the same seat in the 2014 general elections. After the emergence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a strong leader in the BJP after the 2014 general elections, Sinha gradually started going into the background in the party.
In 2019, his ticket from Patna Sahib was cut. After this, he joined the Congress. Sinha joined the Trinamool Congress in March 2022. Mamta Banerjee’s party, betting on Sinha’s popularity, fielded him in the by-election for the Asansol parliamentary seat.
Sinha defeated BJP leader Agnimitra Paul by more than three lakh three thousand votes in this by-election. Thus Sinha became a member of the Lok Sabha for the third time. Trinamool Congress once again trusted Sinha in the current general election and gave him a ticket again from Asansol.
