Saumitra Khan To Run For His Third Term From Bishnupur For Lok Sabha Elections

Saumitra Khan is Member of Parliament from Bishnupur, West Bengal, for the second time. He was elected twice to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and 2019 Parliamentary elections. In 2019 he contested from Bhartiya Janata Party’s ticket. This time again BJP has fielded him from Bishnupur constituency in the first list of candidates.

As per the information available on PRS India, he is 43 years-old and his educational qualification is Matric. Saumitra Khan currently serves as the president of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha West Bengal. He started his political career with the Indian National Congress and later joined Trinamool Congress and, in 2019, he defected to BJP. In 2011, Khan was elected to the state legislative assembly as an INC candidate.

A police case was lodged against him in the money extortion from Job aspirants and was prevented by Kolkata High Court from entering Bankura District. Saumitra has been indicted in multiple criminal and civil cases against him. Earlier, he demanded defence cover from the Calcutta High Court fearing his arrest based on alleged fabricated cases against him.

He also got involved in controversy after demanding a separate state of Junglemahal state. Khan had been in the controversy over divorcing his wife over her joining the Trinamool Congress in 2020. His wife led her husband’s campaign in 2019 when he was barred from entering his constituency.

Earlier this year, posters against Soumitra Khan broke in front of the BJP organizational district party office in Bishnupur. Discontent emerged when the BJP rejigged the state core committee in the run-up to the Bengal rural polls and Saumitra Khan was not included in the committee. He later abdicated his role as party observer against the decision.

The district police in Bankura also initiated a specific case against Soumitra Khan, based on a complaint of broadcasting rumours and propagating doctored photographs on the state’s struggle against the coronavirus. He was also accused of allegedly performing a wrong ‘Ganga Arti’ and hurting the religious sentiments of the people of the state.

He also passed his remarks by saying that he felt PM Narendra Modi was the ‘reincarnation’ of Swami Vivekananda. Soumitra Khan, a BJP leader in Kolkata, stirred up controversy when he referred to people who were against the NRC and the new citizenship law as Mamata Banerjee’s dogs.