Bengal BJP's Celebrity Strategy: Why Stars Face Tougher 2026 Poll Test

A state committee member of the BJP said the central leadership has advised state leaders to consider three factors before recommending the name of a celebrity as a candidate for the Assembly elections next year.

"The first factor is how far the proposed celebrity candidates are ingrained in the basic political ideology of the BJP. The second is how far such candidates are aware of the basic social and geographical structure of the Assembly constituencies from where their candidatures would be proposed. The third and final factor is how far such celebrity candidates would remain associated with the organisation affairs of the party, irrespective of the results," said the state committee member.

It is learnt that the decision to be selective about fielding celebrity candidates has been prompted by the failure of the experiment on this count in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.

In 2021, the BJP fielded several celebrity candidates from the silver screen world. But barring fashion designer-turned-politician Agnimitra Paul and the actor-turned-politician, Hiran Chatterjee, all the other celebrity candidates were defeated.

"The leadership admits that victories and defeats are part of any election process. But what was really disturbing was that these defeated celebrity candidates totally distanced themselves from the party the very moment the results for the 2021 Assembly elections were announced, with many of them even joining Trinamool Congress just within a few days of the results. So, this time our central leadership wants to be extremely selective about fielding celebrity candidates," the state committee member of the party said.

He said that during the last few days, the central leaders of the party, like B.L. Santhosh and Bhupendra Yadav, among others, had several rounds of meetings with the state leaders on the strategy for the 2026 Assembly polls, and during those meetings, the caution about recommending celebrity names as candidates was issued by the central leaders.

- IANS