Didi No 1, Rachana Banerjee To Contest Election From Hooghly On TMC Ticket (Image: rachnabanerjeeinstagram)

Rachna Banerjee, the actor turned politician is contesting for the upcoming 18th Lok Sabha election from Hooghly on a TMC ticket. For Bengal’s politics, this development is nothing new. Earlier in the past years, several actors have joined politics in the state.

The “Didi No 1” fame TV anchor Rachna Banerjee is following the footsteps of her comrades stepped into the politics including Dev, Mimi Chakraborty, Jeet, Nusrat Jahan, Subhasree Ganguly, Moon Moon Sen, Locket Chatterjee, Yash Dasgupta and Tapas Paul. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appeared in the show before the popular actor’s candidature was announced. Banerjee started her campaign by telling the voters that they could ‘see her in person now’.

The Hooghly contest is going to be interesting with a dash of glamour as two faces from the entertainment industry Locket Chatterjee from BJP and Rachana Banerjee from TMC will face each other. In the 2019, general elections, Locket Chatterjee of the BJP emerged victorious in the constituency defeating the TMC candidate with over 1.5 lakh votes.

The Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency was a Communist stronghold until the Trinamul party stole the show in the 2009 general election. All the assembly seats are occupied by TMC members in Hooghly. But in 2019 Locket Chatterjee won the general elections from the seat. She obtained 46 percent votes in comparison to 41 percent of BJP votes. In 2014, TMC Ratna De won with a 45.54 percent share in the constituency.

Hooghly is a general category seat with a 74.03 percent literacy rate. The Muslim, SC, and ST voters are 19%, 15.7%, and 1% respectively. The Urban to Rural voters share is 73.2% and 26.8%. The voter turnout in the last general elections was 78.4%.