Kolkata: Harvard professor and revolutionary Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew Sugata Bose Friday registered a thumping win from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal as a Trinamool Congress candidate.
Bose, son of Netaji’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose, humbled his nearest rival Sujan Chakraborty of the Communist Party of India-Marxist by 125,440 votes.
Elated at the win, Bose told IANS: “I am happy also for Trinamool’s win across the state.
“Now we have a major responsibility and we will try to bring people of all religions together.”
Bharatiya Janata Party’s Swaroop Prasad Ghosh got the third spot, while Congress candidate and painter-activist Samir Aich stood fourth.
Bose’s mother Krishna Bose was a three-time MP from the constituency. She won on a Congress ticket in 1996, and repeated her success in 1998 and 1999 as a Trinamool nominee.
In a way, Bose avenged her mother’s defeat, as she had lost to Chakraborty in 2004.
Bose, who was dubbed as the elite outsider for his Cambridge University education, successfully sailed through canvassing despite a section of Netaji’s family accusing him of violating the model code of conduct for using a “minor” dressed in military fatigues resembling Netaji in his campaign.
He also faced complaints from a student body in Kolkata’s Presidency University which demanded Bose’s resignation from the chair of the varsity’s mentor group, on grounds of his political links desecrating the sanctity of the mentor group, comprising leading academicians.
The 57-year-old has promised to work for bettering education standards in the state.