Kolkata, Jan 26 (IANS): Trinamool Congress Spokesman Kunal Ghosh -- without directly naming anyone -- has ridiculed the Padma Bhushan award for superstar Mithun Chakraborty.

Ghosh said that the Padma Bhushan award is not for his acting talent but as the prize for shifting political camp.

“The Padma Bhushan award is not any recognition of his acting talent. In that case the award could have been conferred any time after 2014. Actually it is an award for his dishonesty towards Trinamool Congress and subsequent slandering of the party,” Ghosh said in this social media handle post on Friday.

However, the state BJP president in West Bengal and the party Lok Sabha member Sukanta Majumdar has launched a scathing attack against Ghosh, where Majumdar has referred to the event of Ghosh spending years behind the bars because of his alleged involvement in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam.

“A three-time national award winning legendary actor has now been conferred the Padma Bhushan. And who is passing a slanderous comment on it? It is passed by someone who has spent three-years behind the bars. Kunal Ghosh is a resident of North Kolkata. Mithun Chakraborty too had spent his early life in North Kolkata. Now the people of north Kolkata will give a fitting reply to Ghosh for such slanderous comments,” Majumdar said.

Chakraborty, an erstwhile Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member joined BJP in Kolkata before the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls. Since then he had been a point of attack for several Trinamool Congress leaders.