‘Next-door boy’ Indranil Banerjee contests from Dum Dum

Indranil Banerjee, a close associate of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy is fighting the Lok Sabha election from Dum Dum Constituency, Kolkata. He is contesting as a Shiv Sena candidate.

An artist by training (from the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata) and IT professional by vocation, Banerjee has worked in senior managerial positions in companies like IBM and Tata. He is state Vice President of Dr. Swamy’s organization, Virat Hindustan Sangam (www.vhsindia.org).

He has organized several programmes in West Bengal like the Crusade for Gau Raksha, which was held on July 11, 2015, in Durgapur, with Dr. Swamy and K.N. Govindacharya as keynote speakers. He also arranged a Silent Protest March on April 19, 2015, demanding the declassification of Netaji files in West Bengal. It was attended by Chandra Kumar Bose and other family members of Netaji’s.

He was brought up in a religious and cultural family by his maternal grandmother, who was the granddaughter of Khirod Prasad Vidya Vinod, renowned Bengali copywriter and dramatist. In college, he strove to completely ban ragging. Later, he got involved in active politics, associating closely with political organizations.

Banerjee was approached to contest the Lok Sabha election by the Shiv Sena West Bengal general secretary, Ashoke Sarkar, according to a press release issued by Banerjee’s office. With the ideology of Shiv Sena being compatible with that of Dr. Swamy’s, Banerjee agreed to contest the election.

Banerjee wants to convey the message to the voters of Dum Dum that in the long run the candidate representing the constituency really matters. Outsiders would not understand everyday problems of Dum Dum residents as he can. He says that he is just like other residents of the constituency, a “next-door boy.”