A political controversy has broken out in Asansol, West Bengal, after posters claiming that Asansol MP and actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha was “missing” appeared during the Chhath Puja celebrations. The posters claim that the MP was not present in the city during an important festival when many people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh gather in Asansol with their families.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC), the ruling party in West Bengal, reacted strongly and blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for spreading the posters. TMC leaders accused the BJP of playing “dirty politics” because they are not able to compete with the ruling party politically. 

Kanchan Roy, a local TMC block president, said that the BJP is trying to mislead people by putting up such posters. He commented that the BJP should focus more on working for the people instead of engaging in cheap political tactics.

Roy further targeted BJP MLA Ajay Podder from Kulti, which falls under the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency. He said Podder is hardly seen in the area and only becomes active when elections are near. According to him, the BJP should first question its own leadership before pointing fingers at others.

The BJP, on the other hand, denied any involvement in the poster incident and claimed that it could be a result of internal conflict within the TMC. Still, BJP leaders did not miss the chance to criticize Shatrughan Sinha. Agnimitra Paul, BJP MLA from Asansol South, called Sinha a “migrant MP.” 

She said that while thousands of people come to Asansol to celebrate Chhath Puja, their MP is not present to share their happiness or support them in difficult times. She sarcastically remarked that the BJP would have to go searching for Sinha in Bhawani Bhawan, the TMC headquarters.

Paul also targeted Kirti Azad, another TMC MP from Bardhaman-Durgapur, accusing him of not being present when a serious crime took place involving a girl from Odisha in West Bengal. Shatrughan Sinha entered Asansol politics in 2022 when he contested and won a by-election by a huge margin of more than 3 lakh votes, defeating Agnimitra Paul.

He won again in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, but this time with a much smaller margin of about 50,000 votes against BJP candidate S. S. Ahluwalia. This new poster controversy has heated up the political environment in Asansol once again, with both TMC and BJP using it to attack each other as the political rivalry continues to grow in the region.