Rabindranath Bhattacharya

Rabindranath Bhattacharya is an Indian politician.^[1] He is also an MLA, elected from the Singur constituency in the 2011 West Bengal state assembly election. Bhattacharjee is better known as “Mastermoshai” which means teacher.^[2]

Rabindranath Bhattacharya
Minister for Agriculture
In office 20 May 2011 – 21 November 2012
Governor	M. K. Narayanan
Succeeded by	Dr. Asish Banerjee
Constituency	Singur
Minister for Statistics & Programme Implementation
In office 21 November 2012 – 10 May 2016
Governor	M. K. Narayanan
Preceded by	Chandranath Sinha
Succeeded by	Asish Banerjee
Constituency	Singur
Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly
In office 2001–2021
Preceded by	Bidyut Kumar Das
Succeeded by	Becharam Manna
Constituency	Singur
Personal details
Born	(1932-09-01) 1 September 1932 (age 92)
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party (2021 - present)
Other political affiliations	All India Trinamool Congress (1998-2021)
Children	1
Residence(s)	Singur, Hooghly district, West Bengal

Political career

In 2001, Bhattacharjee won the Singur constituency for All India Trinamool Congress.^[3] He was instrumental in mobilizing land acquisition of a proposed Tata Nano factory in Singur.^[4] This was one of the causes which led to the defeat of the longest-serving democratically elected Communist government in the world, ending the 34-year rule of the Left Front government, a fact that was noted by the international media.^[5] He played a crucial role in the 2007 anti-land acquisition movement launched by Mamata Banerjee.^[6][7][8]

From May 2011 to November 2012, he was Minister for Agriculture in Mamata Banerjee ministry and was Minister for Statistics & Programme Implementation November 2012 to May 2016.^[9]

In 2021 elections, All India Trinamool Congress denied a ticket for Bhattacharjee. He joined Bharatiya Janata Party and became the candidate from Singur.^[10][11]