The importance of Saumitra Khan: Saumitra Khan started his career in electoral politics with a victory from Kotulpur Vidhan Sabha seat (West Bengal) in 2011. He was then a Congress leader. As Mamata Banerjee started her first innings as the CM, Saumitra came to realise that

the Congress had no future in Bengal. So, as an emerging leader, he did the best thing to secure his political future - dumped Congress for Trinamool Cocgress. Then in his early 30s, Saumitra could rightly sense the diminishing prospect of the Congress. He was one of the first to

identify his future in Trinamool. But he did not have a smooth sailing in TMC either. The old guard sensed danger and started to sideline him. In the meantime, his mentor Mukul Roy joined BJP. Saumitra felt left out. The BJP was then scouting for new leaders. The combination was

win-win for both BJP and Saumitra. Thus began his new innings in BJP. What is remarkable is his ability to read the ground reality. The BJP was only overjoyed to appoint him as the head of its youth wing. Let me elaborate the challenges he faced in changing his party loyalty

twice. First Kotulpur VS: Since 1971, the party which has had its hold on this seat has grabbed the seat of power in the Writer's Building/ Nabanna. The CPM started winning Kotulpur, and Bengal, in 1977. The winning streak came to an end in 2011. After 2011 VS polls, I had met

some people of Kotulpur. They all claimed to have voted for Saumitra, then a Congress nominee. Since people still had anger against Congress, they claimed, many people did not vote for Saumitra. He managed to win by around 3000 votes. Had he been a TMC candidate, they claimed,

Saumitra would have won by a 10x higher margin. Imagine the anger! Bishnupur LS seat: From 1971 to 2009, this seat had a CPM MP. Saumitra won it in 2014 as a TMC candidate. He repeated the feat in 2019 as a BJP candidate. Bishnupur was considered a red fort for CPM. On both the

occasions, I had doubts whether he will be able to make it. He won the seat twice with a comfortable margin, raising his stock as a young leader. Unlike most of the ex-MPs of this seat, Saumitra speaks in Parliament. His energy, youthfulness and combative attitude paid rich

dividends for Saumitra as he was named the BJP youth wing chief some time back. He is crisscrossing the state and holding political programmes everywhere. So, TMC's loss is BJP's gain. This young man has an uncanny ability to read ground situation. With history on his side, he is

set to go a long way in Bengal politics. Watch out for him!