Abhishek Banerjee (politician)

Abhishek Banerjee (born 8 November 1987) is an Indian politician who has been a Member of Parliament for Diamond Harbour, West Bengal, since 2014 and President of Trinamool Youth Congress since 2011.^[1]

Banerjee was a member of the Standing Committee of Commerce in 2014, as well as a member of the Consultative Committee under the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs in 2014. He also served on the Railway Convention Committee (R.C.C.) from April 2015 to May 2019. ^[2] of External Affairs since September 2019. On 5 June 2021 he was appointed the general secretary of Trinamool Congress.^[3][4]

Abhishek Banerjee is the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.He was born into a Bengali Hindu family from the Shandilya gotra.^[5] He was born and raised in Kolkata, India. Banerjee went to Nava Nalanda High School and M.P. Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School, both in Kolkata. After relocating to Delhi, Banerjee studied for his MBA and BBA degrees in Human Resource and Marketing at the now-defunct and contentious Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM),^[2] In 2009, New Delhi. On February 24, 2012, Banerjee wed Rujira, a Thai national. They are parents to a son and a daughter together.^[2]

Abhishek Banerjee entered politics as a member of the Trinamool Congress in 2011, after the party ousted the 34-year-old Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front regime by winning the Assembly Election that year. In 2011, Abhishek Banerjee was elected National President of the All India Trinamool Youth Congress, establishing him as the Trinamool Congress's youth icon.^[6]

Banerjee represented the TMC in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as a candidate from the Diamond Harbour constituency. He defeated the closest CPI(M) opponent by a wide margin.^[7] At that time, Banerjee was the youngest parliamentarian in the lower house.^[8] He also organised the M.P. Cup Football Tournament.^[9] to encourage young people in his district to participate in sports and physical exercise. Following the successful conclusion of his first term, Banerjee defeated the closest opponent from BJP by a margin of 320,594 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha Election from Diamond Harbour.^[7] Abhishek breaks the previous record by winning the Diamond Harbour constituency of the 2024 Lok Sabha for the third time in a row with 7,10,930 votes.^[10][11]

At the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance convention in Mumbai on September 1, 2023, Banerjee was named a member of the Coordination Committee.^[12][13] The coordination committee will decide the national agenda, common campaign issues and common program of the country's main opposition alliance (I.N.D.I.A.).

In 2015, a person named Debashish Acharya slapped Banerjee at a public meeting after which Acharya was physically attacked by Trinamool Congress Party supporters; Acharya was also arrested by the police. Later, Banerjee forgave him and he was released from jail. Six years later, in June 2021, Acharya was found dead under reportedly mysterious circumstances. Acharya was brought to the hospital by some unidentified people where the doctor declared him dead on arrival. .^{[14][15][16][17]}