Sovan Chatterjee

Sovan Chatterjee (born 7 July 1964) is an Indian politician. He is a former member of Indian National Congress, Trinamool Congress, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He has also served as the Mayor of Kolkata. Chatterjee served as a Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) councilor since 1985. In 2019, he joined Bharatiya Janata Party, and left in 2021.

Political career
Chatterjee, a councillor in the KMC since 1985, also served as a mayor in council from 2000 to 2005, of the corporation. Chatterjee won the Behala Purba seat in the 2011 West Bengal Assembly election, which he retained in 2016.

Mayor of Kolkata
In 2010, he was appointed the mayor of Kolkata by his party All India Trinamool Congress, with Farzana Alam being appointed his deputy. He resigned from the mayor post on 22 November 2018.

Cabinet Minister
Chatterjee was made a cabinet minister in 2016. Former mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said that there was no provision in the law that prevents a mayor from holding a ministerial berth. With the decline in supply of cattle, India's first fully automated slaughterhouse (in Tangra area) was shut down in May 2017. Chatterjee reacted by saying that he would examine the matter.

In December 2016, Chatterjee became the first mayor of any city in India to get Z-plus security cover (the highest level of security cover in India). In that category, he would get security cover by National Security Guard commandos.

In November 2014, Chatterjee was announced as the mayoral candidate of his party for the civic polls which were to be held in 2015. He was reappointed the mayor of the city in May, as his party won the polls.

Career In BJP
On 22 November 2018, he resigned from the mayor post of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. He later joined BJP on 14 August 2019. He was the observer of Kolkata Zone for West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party.

Personal life
Sovan Chatterjee married Ratna, daughter of Dulal Chandra Das, in 2001. Together, they have one son, Saptarshi.

Since 2018, Sovan has been estranged from his wife, Ratna. He filed for divorce, citing Ratna's alleged extra-marital affair with her business partner Abhijit Ganguly, which Ratna denied. Till now, Ratna has refused to grant divorce to Sovan. Citing threats to his life from Ratna, Sovan left his Behala residence & is currently residing in a Golpark flat with Baisakhi Banerjee, a university lecturer & member of TMC's teachers' unit, with whom he has been having an extra-marital affair since 2009. Ratna has blamed Baisakhi (who also left her husband Manojit Mondal within 2 months of their marriage to live with Sovan) for instigating trouble in their married life. Sovan was reportedly displeased when Dulal Chandra Das was fielded as TMC's candidate for bypolls to the Maheshtala seat in 2018, which he interpreted as party supremo Mamata Banerjee siding with his estranged wife Ratna. In November 2018, Mamata Banerjee also made Sovan resign from his positions as a Minister in her cabinet & mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation due to marital problems affecting his work, which caused him to further distance himself from the party. In August 2019, Sovan, accompanied by Baisakhi, joined BJP, while Ratna continued to remain in TMC. However, Sovan wasn't much active in the party, citing lack of respect for Baisakhi. In the 2021 state elections, TMC fielded Ratna Chatterjee as its candidate from Sovan's erstwhile seat of East Behala. Sovan wanted to be fielded there as the BJP candidate against his estranged wife, however the party refused and instead planned to field him in the neighbouring seat of West Behala. Citing this and the party's refusal to make Baisakhi a candidate in the elections, Sovan quit from the BJP alongside Baisakhi on 14 March 2021, 2 weeks before polling began.

After Sovan was arrested over the Narada sting operation, Baisakhi was recorded by the media crying before the security guards of Alipore Jail to allow her to meet him, but they refused, saying that she wasn't legally related to him. But Sovan refused to meet with Ratna, who was allowed to meet him in jail.

Sovan has also made Baisakhi his legal successor for his all properties, displacing Ratna & his son Saptarshi.

Bhangar Power Grid
Chatterjee supports the restoration work of building the Bhangar Power Grid, which was stopped due to the protests of villagers over the acquisition of land. He said that outsiders with vested interests were hindering development.

Water crisis
In May 2017, there were reports of water crisis in South Kolkata. Areas affected included Garden Reach, Watgunj, Kidderpore. Left Front councillors boycotted a monthly meeting of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to protest against the body's inability to solve the issue. About the complaints, Chatterjee said that the opposition was making a "mountain out of a molehill".

Controversies
On 17 May 2021, he, along with senior minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, Subrata Mukherjee, MLA and former minister Madan Mitra and Firhad Hakim were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation from their house in connection with the Narada sting operation.