Mamata Banerjee Backs Veteran Saugata Roy for Dum Dum Seat in Lok Sabha Polls
Despite debates over retirement age, Mamata insists on veteran Roy's candidacy; Saugata Roy seeks one last term
Shortly after 76-year-old politician Saugata Roy asked the audience at a poll rally in Khardah to vote for him one final time, Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday expressed her gratitude to Roy for volunteering to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Dum Dum despite his senior age.
Our senior when we started in politics was Saugata da. However, he has always been green and genuinely wants to serve the public. Would you run for office before the elections, I asked him? The chief minister said, "Yes," and gave an explanation for why he was giving the veteran Trinamool Congress member and former physics professor another go at the hustings.
Based on the chief minister's statement, Roy has been "the number one MP" that the BJP could never defeat in parliamentary debates.
The chairwoman of Trinamool stated, "I was so relieved that I would not have to look around for someone else for this seat."
In the midst of a heated discussion over politicians' retirement ages in the Trinamool Congress during the past few years, the remark inadvertently disclosed that Roy was chosen for this general election due to Mamata's persistence.
There was a rumor in Trinamool circles prior to the Lok Sabha elections that party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who has previously stated in public that MPs should retire at a certain age, supported younger candidates. This cleared the path for a number of outsiders to be nominated by their parties, including Debangshu Bhattacharya from Tamluk and Sayani Ghosh from Jadavpur.
Only Roy's speech at the gathering at Khardah, some 20 km from Calcutta, made it evident that certain exceptions—Sudip Bandyopadhyay, 72, the nominee from Kolkata Uttar, being the other veteran in the race—were made because Mamata insisted on holding this poll.
"I am getting old, but our leader Mamata Banerjee has given me nomination.... I will be forever indebted to her," Roy stated.
"This will be my final election. Will you not cast your vote for me?" he posed to the crowd at Khardah's Surya Sen Sporting Ground.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Roy, who has served as the representative for Dum Dum in Parliament for the last three terms, hopes to win for a record-breaking fourth time.
On June 1, the seventh and last round of elections, the sixteen thousand odd voters of Dum Dum will cast their ballots.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
