KOLKATA, May 18 (agencies): West Bengal's politics was dull and drab sans color until fiery Mamata Banerjee took in the sixty years after Independence, as cine idols dominated South Indian politics from MG Ramachandran to Jayalalithaa to NT Rama Rao and countless others, Bengal's film greats stuck to what they did best -- act.
Of the 34 MPs Trinamool Congress is sending to India's Lok Sabha, five are former and current stars from the tinsel town.
In 2009, it was just Tapas Pal and Satabdi Ray. This time, they are joined by Moon Moon Sen, Sandhya Ray and the current Tollywood craze Dev (real name: Deepak Adhikary). Theatre personality Arpita Ghosh has also won and joins them.
Moon Moon and Sandhya are surely past their prime, Tapas and Satabdi more into small screen serials and only Dev a current craze.
But other MPs who received an initiation lecture on parliamentary politics from supremo Mamata Banerjee Saturday appeared more keen to get their pictures taken with these stars. That include Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who won the Diamond Harbour seat.
He got others to take his pictures with Dev and Mithun Chakrabarty, the Trinamool's MP in Rajya Sabha (Upper House).
"They appeared more keen to taking pictures with these stars than listening to Didi's does and don'ts in parliament," said a Trinamool leader, not willing to be named.
Even Didi (as Mamata is affectionately called) sat between Moon Moon Sen and Sandhya Ray for the group pictures.
Mamata named veteran Sudip Bandopadhyay as leader of the Trinamool parliament group with Ratna Dey Nag, a professional doctor, and Sugato Bose, a Harvard professor, as deputy leaders.
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