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Bengali movie titans fight battle of ballots
By Sujoy Dhar, Indo-Asian News Service

Kolkata, Feb 19 (IANS) Kolkata will keenly watch a real life battle of ballots in the coming West Bengal assembly elections between two biggies of the Bengali film industry. 

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Ace actor and Trinamool Congress candidate Tapas Paul is pitted in Alipore constituency against the prime villain of the Bengali screen, Biplab Chatterjee, a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate. 

Together they have reigned over Tollywood for decades. Tapas Paul, who dominated the Bengali screen in the 1980s and 1990s as a supporting actor, played second fiddle to superstar Prasenjit but was always hailed as a better performer.

Paul is the Trinamool Congress MLA from Alipore, neighbourhood of the city's rich and famous, while Tollywood badman Chatterjee contested the poll in 1998 from the adjacent Rashbehari constituency but lost.

While Paul and Chatterjee share a cozy relationship in the film industry, they would be fighting a bitter poll battle for the Alipore seat. Both said that they would not yield an inch to the other in the poll arena.

"My protest is against a directionless, unprincipled party like the Trinamool Congress which wants to stall development of West Bengal," said Chatterjee, who plays not only the villain in every Bengali film but has also acted in several arty movies.

His debut role was that of an unemployed youth in Satyajit Ray's 1970 masterpiece "Pratidwandi" (The Rival).

Paul on the other hand thinks the real battle is between "didi" (elder sister) Mamata Banerjee and the Left Front.

"I have worked for my constituency in the past five years and am not bothered about who is pitted against me. The biggest factor is the Mamata factor," said Paul.

Paul began his career as a loveable dullard in Tarun Majumdar's blockbuster "Dadar Kirti" in 1980 and went on to become one of the most popular actors of Tollywood with a huge fan following especially among women. 

However, Paul's personal life has been marred by several controversies including his legal battle with his mother and sisters over family property.

Chatterjee was always involved in Left politics and spearheaded several protest movements in the film industry. 

In recent times, he was batting for cricketer Sourav Ganguly and the wounded Bengali pride after Dada's repeated removal from the playing squads.