Singer-turned-politician and former Union Minister Babul Supriyo sprung a huge surprise on Saturday after he joined Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in the presence of her nephew Abhishek Banerjee and party MP Derek O’Brien.
The significant political development came after he was asked to resign as minister in the Environment Ministry in July this year, and days after he publicly announced that he was ‘quitting politics’.
A senior TMC MP claimed that Babul may be divided by colours but he personally shares a very good relationship with Mamata Banerjee. “We all know the famous ‘Jhalmuri Politics’ when Supriyo shared ‘jhalmuri’ (spicy puffed rice) with Mamata Banerjee on the way to Raj Bhavan in a car after a programme where Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched three mega social security schemes in 2015. The door was never closed for him. It was just a matter of time,” he said.
Ever since Babul lost the 2021 Assembly Elections in West Bengal – his social media posts drew the attention of political experts as he has been sending enough hints that all is not well in the state BJP.
On July 7, he was among the 12 ministers who were dropped from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet.
Actually, his demotion was sealed when he lost to Aroop Biswas, the TMC’s sports and power minister, in the state elections.
During the first term of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, he served as minister of state for urban development, housing and urban poverty alleviation from November 2014 to July 2016 and as minister of state for heavy industries and public enterprises from July 2016 to May 2019. He also served as minister of state for the environment.
But when he was dropped from PM Modi cabinet, he went on a spree posting cryptic messages on his social media.
He first claimed that he was asked to resign but hurriedly deleted the post and clarified that he had resigned from the council of ministers.
He also wrote, “When there is smoke, there must be a fire somewhere” and claimed he was ‘extremely happy’ to go ‘without a spot of corruption on him”.
The two-time MP in Lok Sabha (which he won in 2014 and 2019) also had a rough relationship with State BJP president Dilip Ghosh.
On January 12, 2020, the Bengal BJP president courted controversy by threatening to shoot those involved in damaging public property ‘like in Uttar Pradesh’. Then, he took back his statement and termed it ‘irresponsible’.
This was not the first time when Supriyo came out in the open on the party’s internal affairs.
Earlier, in July 2017, he took to Twitter and said that state party president Dilip Ghosh has asked him not to interfere in the party’s organisational work at Asansol.
Asansol is Babul’s constituency and trouble began after BJP councillor Emmanuel Wheeler also known as Bapi (in Asansol) had joined Trinamool Congress. Wheeler was unhappy with the district leadership and discussed the matter with Supriyo.
Supriyo discussed the matter with Ghosh and tweeted this: “Dilip Da (state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh) has told me that running the organisation is not the job of an MP or MLA. So I do not interfere in the organisation anymore. You carry out your work. I was with you, I will be with you.”
Babul made a career as a playback singer in Hindi cinema in the mid-nineties and has sung for films in Hindi, Bengali, and Odia languages.
He was born and brought up in Uttarpara in the Hooghly district. His parents are Sunil Chandra Baral and Sumitra Baral. He comes from a musical family and was greatly influenced by his grandfather, Banikantha NC Baral, a Bengali vocalist and composer.
He used to work at the Standard Chartered Bank but he didn’t like the job and he decided to pursue singing as a full-time career. In 1992, he shifted to Mumbai to make a career in Bollywood. Indian composer Kalyanji Virji Shah gave him the first break, and took him to perform abroad at their live shows.
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