Moon Moon wins in Bankura, daughters elated

She had dazzled fans with her oomph and charisma three decades ago, sizzled the Lok Sabha poll battle in West Bengal's Bankura with her simplicity and elegance and eventually stole the show on counting day Friday by defeating nine-time MP and CPI-M nominee Basudeb Acharia.

Actress Moon Moon Sen, dented the Left bastion in the tribal belt of Bankura, triumphing by 97,511 votes over Acharia, who had been winning from the seat without a break since 1980. Her daughters - Riya and Raima - are happy.

Sen, daughter of Bengali screen legend Suchitra Sen, received 481,911 votes.

The 71-year old Acharia, leader of his party in the outgoing Lok Sabha, managed only 384,400 votes.

Sen's actress daughter, Riya who religiously accompanied her star mom on the campaign trail along with her elder sister Raima, took to Twitter to laud the actress.

She wrote: "The best lady won" while Raima alluded to Moon Moon's beauty in her tweets.

"Good looks comes to Bengal politics!":)," she chirped after her mother won.

Sen's glamorous roadshows, with Raima and Riya in tow, was a far cry from Acharia's canvassing, mostly on foot, walking through hamlets.

In an interview to IANS earlier, the self-confessed textile enthusiast, had expressed a desire to revive indigenous crafts and textiles of the region, if she won.

Moon Moon, 60, who drew parallels between the film industry and electioneering, became a subject of media ridicule when she claimed it would be difficult to look "glamorous in the summer".

However, hitting the campaign trail from a tribal belt, Moon Moon Sen nee Srimati Dev Barma, married into the erstwhile Tripura royal family, showed she could balance both worlds with panache.

Residents often linked Moon Moon to her iconic mother Suchitra Sen, a paradox considering the senior Sen would have never wanted her daughter to be in politics.

The Oxford-educated Moon Moon, true to her pedigree, refrained from political attacks and always projected a sophisticated and polite image despite the frenetic pace of travelling during the last couple of months.