Abhishek Banerjee (politician)

Abhishek Banerjee (born 7 November 1987) is an Indian Politician. He is a member of the All India Trinamool Congress and he is currently serving as a Member of Parliament, Diamond Harbour (Lok Sabha constituency), South 24 Parganas, West Bengal since 2014. Banerjee has also been the President of Trinamool Youth Congress since 2011, the youth wing of the Trinamool Congress, currently in power in West Bengal.

Abhishek Banerjee has served as a member of the Standing Committee of Commerce in 2014. He was also selected as a member of the Consultative Committee under the Ministry of Finance and Corporate affairs in 2014. He had served as a member of Railway Convention Committee (R.C.C.) from April 2015 to May 2019.

He currently serves as a member of Standing Committee of External Affairs since September 2019. On 5 June 2021 he was appointed as the general secretary of Trinamool Congress.

He is also a founder of Diamond Harbour FC.

Personal life
Abhishek Banerjee is the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He was born and raised in Kolkata, India. Banerjee attended Nava Nalanda High School and M.P. Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School both in Kolkata. Later, Banerjee moved to Delhi and pursued his BBA and MBA in Human Resource and Marketing from the, controversial and now defunct, Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), New Delhi in 2009. Banerjee married a Thai national named Rujira on 24 February 2012. Together they have two children, a daughter and a son.

Political career
Abhishek Banerjee joined politics as a member of All India Trinamool Congress in 2011 after the party had ousted 34 years of Communist Party of India led Left Front regime by winning the Assembly Election in the same year. Abhishek Banerjee was recognised as the youth icon of All India Trinamool Congress when he was selected as the National President of All India Trinamool Youth Congress in 2011.

In 2014, Banerjee contested the Lok Sabha elections on behalf of All India Trinamool Congress as a candidate from the constituency of Diamond Harbour and won by a significant margin defeating the nearest opponent from Communist Party of India. At that time, Banerjee was the youngest parliamentarian in the lower house. He had also arranged the M.P. Cup Football Tournament in his constituency to inspire the youth to engage in sports and physical activities. After the successful completion of his first tenure, Banerjee won the 2019 Lok Sabha Election from Diamond Harbour with a margin of 320,594 votes, defeating the nearest opponent from BJP. Abhishek sets new record of winning 3rd consecutive time from Diamond Harbour constutiency of 2024 Lok Sabha by over 7,10,000 votes.

Member of coordination committee of Indian National Developmental Alliance
Banerjee has been appointed as a member of the Coordination Committee of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance at its Mumbai convention on 1 September 2023. 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.).

Death of Debashish Acharya
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. His family claimed that he was murdered by "party goons".