Prasun Banerjee, The Footballer Turned Politician To Run On TMC Ticket (Image: @MP_AITMC)Prasun Banerjee, the former Indian professional footballer turned politician, is a serving MP in Lok Sabha from Howrah. He has been nominated on the TMC ticket again to run for election for the 18th Lok Sabha.
Banerjee is an Arjuna Award winner in year 1979. In 2013, he won the by-poll to the Howrah Sadar parliamentary constituency on a TMC ticket by defeating left front’s Sridip Bhattacharya with over 27,000 votes. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and 2019. In the last general election, Prasun Banerjee won the elections with 47.18 percent votes defeating Rantidev Sengupta with over 1,00,000 votes.
In his last tenure in Lok Sabha, Prasun Banerjee attended the lower house proceedings with 76% attendance, participated in 4 sports related debates only and asked a total of 79 questions.
Trinamool MP was embroiled in a controversy when he slapped a traffic official while stopped by him violating a ‘no U-turn’ rule. Recently, he also drew criticism over making objectionable remarks about Hindu and Muslim communities, comparing their existence.
TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee’s younger brother Babun Banerjee does not seem happy with Prasun Banerjee’s nomination from the constituency. He said, “I am not happy with the selection of the candidate from Howrah Lok Sabha seat. Prasun Banerjee is not the right choice. There were many capable candidates who were overlooked”. Notably, both had differences in the past.
Located on the western bank of the Hooghly River, Howrah was described by Hindustan Times as a 500-year-old urban agglomeration most known for its densely populated, unplanned urban areas, one of the largest rail termini in the nation, and a rusting industrial sector, particularly iron foundries.
Howrah is a general category seat with a 74.33% literacy rate. The Muslim, SC, and ST voters are 21.9 percent, 9.2 percent, and 0.3 percent respectively. The total urban and rural population is 92.8% and 7.2% respectively. In the last general elections, the voter turnout was 74.8%.
BJP has fielded Ratin Chakraborty from Howrah to run the upcoming elections.