Kolkata: Seeking to fan the Bengali pride, former union minister Babul Supriyo who was nominated as TMC's candidate for Ballygunge assembly by-election, on Monday questioned why a Bengali was never made a union cabinet minister during the eight years of the BJP government at the Centre.


TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had on Sunday named Babul Supriyo as nominee for the by-election to Ballygunge assembly seat and Shatrughan Sinha as the party's candidate for the by-poll to Asansol parliamentary seat.


The Asansol seat was vacated by Supriyo, who had quit the saffron party last year and joined the TMC.


READ | I Am Not An Outsider In Bengal, Want To Expand 'Khela hobe' Across The Country: Shatrughan Sinha


The Ballygunge assembly seat fell vacant following the death of Bengal minister Subrata Mukherjee in November 2021.


"In the last eight years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah never felt a Bengali could be made a cabinet minister. Do they think a Bengali does not deserve to be a cabinet minister? The parties of north India have always neglected Bengalis. I left the BJP because I was removed as minister from the union minister. I want to thank Mamata Banerjee for allowing me to serve the people," he said.


Supriyo, the former two-time BJP MP, had joined TMC last year just months after he was dropped as a minister following a union ministry reshuffle.


When asked to comment on the contradictions in TMC's 'insider-outsider' poll plank in view of it nominating Sinha for the Asansol seat, Supriyo said there is none as the famed actor is a well-known name across the country.


"There is neither contradiction nor confusion as BJP leaders from other states, who had no love for Bengal or its culture came to the state with a sole intention of winning in the poll. But in the case of Shatrughan Sinha, this is not the case," he said.


Popularly called `Shotgun' by his fans for his straightforward dialogue deliveries and speeches, Sinha rejected the "outsider" tag his rivals gave him, asserting that he was "no less a Bengali than any other Bengali".


The comments came amid protests by the opposition BJP which questioned why TMC nominated an "outsider" (Sinha hails from Bihar) for the Lok Sabha by-poll when it had won the assembly poll in 2021 on the poll plank of `Bangaliana' (Bengali mores and cultural values).


Reacting to Supriyo's comment, BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh said the TMC should come clean on its poll plank of Bengali pride.


"Babul Supriyo is saying a lot of things now. But why didn't he say anything when he was in BJP? TMC should come out clean on its narrative of insider-outsider. When BJP leaders came to Bengal, they became an outsider and when the TMC brings leaders from other states, they become Bengalis. This is a laughable theory," he said.


The 'insider-outsider' debate in West Bengal gained strength before the state election in 2021, with ruling TMC embracing Bengali sub-nationalism as its main poll plank to counter the rise of the BJP's Hindutva narrative in the state and branding the saffron party as a "party of outsiders".


TMC had then fanned the Bengali pride by coming up with a poll slogan, "Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chai" (Bengal wants its own daughter meaning Banerjee) and creating a poll narrative of sub-nationalism to counter BJP's identity politics.


(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)