Asansol: A 1979 Bollywood blockbuster, which had turned him into an icon overnight, is now helping actor-politician and Trinamool Congress candidate Shatrughan ‘Shotgun’ Sinha connect with Asansol’s 16 lakh voters, primarily comprising Hindi-speaking coal workers who trace their roots to Jharkhand and Bihar.

‘Kaala Patthar’, Yash Chopra’s star-studded film based on the 1975 Chasnala mining disaster in Dhanbad (then part of unified Bihar), had strongly resonated with the residents of the Asansol-Raniganj colliery belt 43 years ago. And even today, Mangal Singh — the coal worker played by Sinha who dies saving his colleagues from a flooded mine — warms the cockles of Asansol’s heart.

No surprise that Trinamool has screened the film 35 times here since campaigning for the parliamentary by-election began. At the end of every show, a small message is being delivered in Bengali in Sinha’s own voice to say he was now ready to don his reel mantle in real life.

Sinha had stayed in Asansol during the shooting of the film and is being portrayed as someone who closely knows the place, its people and their language (being born in Bihar’s Patna Sahib). “This region is not unknown to me. I am aware of the dangers the coal miners face. During the shooting of ‘Kaala Patthar’, I used to visit Asansol frequently,” Sinha told a rally in Kulti a few days ago.

The former MP has been vocal against the Narendra Modi government’s “PSU privatizing spree”, including the coal sector, and the Trinamool leadership believes that the Mangal Singh connection will help him counter the “outsider” tag.

The BJP had gone all guns blazing to project Sinha as an “outsider”. It claimed its nominee from the seat, fashion designer and sitting Asansol Dakshin MLA Agnimitra Paul, “does not need to put up at a hotel to campaign (she has bought a house here)”. It even coined a new term around the Trinamool’s 2021 poll slogan to say, “Asansol nijer meyekei chai (Asansol wants its daughter to win)”.

“I know what people here need, unlike outsiders. I have a master plan for Asansol,” Paul said.