India cancels Bangladeshi actor Ferdous’ visa for joining polls campaign

India has blacklisted Bangladeshi actor Ferdous Ahmed after cancelling his visa for joining election campaign of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 16 April 2019, 03:59 PM
Updated : 16 April 2019, 05:53 PM

The Indian government ordered the actor to leave the country after receiving report from the Bureau of Immigration regarding visa violations, the Hindustan Times reported citing a statement from the union home ministry on Tuesday.

Ferdous already left the country and returned home, according to The India Today.

bdnews24.com could not reach him on his phone on Tuesday as it was switched off.

On Monday, the actor told bdnews24.com he had gone to India for a shoot and taken part in the campaign “on a producer’s request”.

Opposition parties in West Bengal had protested the appearance of Ferdous at a Trinamool road show and election rally in Raiganj, north Bengal, on Tuesday, the Hindustan Times said.

The parties also demanded the cancellation of the candidature of Kanaia Lal Agarwal, the ruling party’s candidate from that constituency.

“The Election Commission of India must find out what reason Ferdous had cited in his application for a visa. Can a foreign national campaign for a candidate in India?” the newspaper quoted BJP state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar as saying.

Ferdous shot to fame for his role in ‘Hothat Brishti’, a Bangladesh-India joint production by West Bengal director Basu Chatterjee, in 1998.

The 45-year-old national award-winning actor has since acted in over 50 movies produced from Kolkata. He also acted in a Bollywood film, ‘Mitti’, in 2001.

After appearing at a roadshow in Raiganj on Sunday, Ferdous was seen on the dais of a rally, urging the electorate to vote for West Bengal’s ruling party and ‘Didi’, or Mamata.

India is holding the elections to the lower house of parliament in phases.

Raiganj is a keenly-fought seat with Agarwal locked in a triangular contest with Congress’s Deepa Dasmunshi and CPI-M’s Mohammad Salim.

Raiganj will vote during the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday.

The counting of votes of the seven-phased polls will be held on May 23.