Veteran actor Shankar Chakraborty has been elected the new working president of a forum of Tollywood artistes in a triangular contest in which an actor known to be close to the Trinamul Congress came second and an actress who recently joined the BJP finished fourth.

The working president’s post had been vacant since actor Prosenjit Chatterjee resigned last year.

The West Bengal Motion Picture Artists’ Forum was founded in 1998 for the welfare of film and TV artistes. Of the 2,500-odd registered members, 1,896 voted on Sunday. The results were declared on Monday.

Actor Arindam Ganguly will continue to be the general secretary. Soumitra Chatterjee is the lifetime president.

Soham Chakraborty

June

Many actors and artistes saw in the election of Shankar an attempt among the forum’s members to rise above political considerations and pick someone who would show greater concern about the interest of colleagues.

Bharat Kaul, who is presumed to be close to Trinamul, came second. Anjana Basu, who had joined the BJP recently, came a distant fourth.

“The opportunists have been defeated,” a senior actress said. “If you suddenly join a certain party and think all of us will vote for you, you are mistaken. People have voted for artistes who have a proven track record of working for the industry and its people,” she added.

After the BJP had bagged 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats last year, the party tried to make a foray into Tollywood with several fringe artistes.

Several actors who had joined the BJP were in the fray on Sunday and none could win. Besides Anjana Basu, there were Lama, Anindya Banerjee and Rupa Bhattacharya.

Sources said Prosenjit Chatterjee had earlier suggested Shankar’s name as the working president. Shankar was then one of the vice-presidents.

The large turnout in the election, several artistes said, was an indicator that “there was a mood against political polarisation”.

“I had appealed to members to come out and vote in large numbers. And there was a record turnout,” Shankar said late on Monday night:

He added: “The forum will blur party boundaries and work for artistes.”

Elections were held for the posts of working president, three vice-presidents, a general secretary, two joint secretaries, two assistant secretaries, a treasurer, an assistant treasurer and five executive committee members.

Left-leaning actor Paran Badyopadhyay, Soham Chakraborty and Jeet were elected vice-presidents. Soham is known to be close to Trinamul.

Kushal Chakraborty, Sonalee Chaudhuri, June, Sagnik and Diganta Bagchi were elected to the executive committee.