'Honour for me': Bengali film actor Koel Mallick joins BJP, day after party fields her for RS polls

Bengali film actor Rukmini Mallick, popularly known as Koel Mallick, joined the BJP on Monday, a day after the party nominated her for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.

The daughter of veteran Bengali film actor Ranjit Mallick had a short stint as a TMC Rajya Sabha MP from April 6 to July 16. She resigned after the Mamata Banerjee-led party's electoral debacle in the assembly elections.

Welcoming Koel Mallick into the BJP fold, the party's West Bengal general secretary Sashi Agnihotri said the actor will file her nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat on Monday.

"It would be an honour for me to become a member of the Upper House of Parliament and get a chance to work for the welfare of the people," Mallick told a press conference at the BJP state headquarters here.

Actor says she wants to work on Bengal’s development

The actor-politician said she wants to be part of the development initiatives taken up by the first BJP government in West Bengal and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari for selecting her for the Rajya Sabha membership.

Elections to 12 Rajya Sabha seats across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal will be held on October 16. The BJP has a clear majority in the West Bengal Assembly.

Koel responds to criticism over leaving TMC

Asked about negative comments against her for leaving the TMC and joining the BJP, Mallick said, "They are making such rude comments possibly because of their own vexations. I have no anger against them."

She said initiatives that would have kept Bengal's talent in the state and not caused their flight were being taken up by the new dispensation, and she wants to be a part of it. "The root cause of increasing toxicity on social media is lack of work among the people."

‘Every party has its own ways of working’

"Every party has its own ways of working and doing good. I feel enormously proud and privileged that I am now in a party which has undertaken welfare works for people in West Bengal in the past few months," she told reporters when asked if it was a wrong decision on her part to have joined the Trinamool Congress, with which she had a short stint.