Panting heavily, a 64-year-old passenger jumped off a motorcycle, tripped, and yelled, “Dhor, oke dhor, booth capture korche (catch him, he was capturing a voting booth).”
Her pen fell off as the lanyard struggled to hold her pair of glasses safe as it swung around her neck.
After a brief chase with minor injuries to his knees and elbows, the man managed to grab the young man, and after a heated discussion he was handed over to the paramilitaries. Then, the young man in a fit of rage showed his trigger finger to the man as they dragged him into a police van.
“You came here to capture the cabins and now you are threatening me,” the man yelled.
This happened around 8.40am on April 29, 2019, and the venue was Krishnath College (some of its great students are the freedom fighter Master da Surya Sen, the youngest headmaster in the world at the age of sixteen Babar Ali, the filmmaker and screenwriter Ritwik Ghatak) in Berhampore, in the Murshidabad district, as Congress was fighting to resist the ‘Modi wave’ across the country around the Lok Sabha polls.
While the BJP smeared most of India’s political map with saffron, this 60-year-old was a great relief to the head of Congress, Sonia Gandhi, as she once again proved that she was the real ‘nawab’ of Murshidabad after retaining Berhampore’s seat in the parliamentary elections for defeating Trinamool’s congressional candidate, Apurba Sarkar, with more than 80,000 votes.
Meet Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who not only retained his seat in Lok Sabha, but his political prowess was also noted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who congratulated him as a ‘fighter’ with a pat on the back in Parliament.
Their hard work paid off, and in June 2019 Congress was shocked to announce Adhir as their leader of the Lok Sabha party. He became the first member of the Bengal Parliament to hold office with Congress on the opposition seats.
Adhir had previously served as Chairman of the West Bengal Pradesh Congressional Committee between February 2014 and September 2018. In Parliament, in addition to being the Congressional Leader in the Lok Sabha, he is also Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) .
From October 2012 to May 2014, he served as Minister of State for Railways under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
On September 9, 2020, the central leadership of Congress (after the sudden disappearance of Somendra Nath Mitra on July 30, 2020) released another surprise and appointed Adhir as chairman of the West Bengal unit.
While he was already assuming the responsibility of party leader Lok Sabha, appointing Adhir as head of the party’s Bengal unit is considered by many to be a good move for Sonia Gandhi to strengthen the party ahead of the 2021 assembly elections.
But for Adhir, who is known as a strong critic of Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, it appears to be Hobson’s choice because any substantial increase in the percentage of votes in Congress, considering his alliance with the Left Front, would mean a profit for the state government. Trinamool Congress and concerns for the saffron brigade.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, TMC got 43 percent of the vote (despite losing 12 seats), which is 5 percent more than it got in the 2014 edition. In 2014, TMC it won 34 seats, while in 2019 it only managed 22. But, despite losing 12 seats, the TMC’s share of votes has risen, mainly due to the polarization of Muslim votes.
The Congressional bill dropped from four to two, while the Left Front was unable to open its account in 2019.
In the 2016 assembly polls, the BJP’s vote share was 10.2% and in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections it rose to 40.3%. There was a 30.1 percent increase primarily because votes from the left and Congress gravitated toward the BJP.
Detailed analysis reveals that from the 2011 assembly elections to the 2016 assembly elections and from the 2014 to 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress has lost almost 7.3% of its share of votes. , while the CPI (M) lost its share of votes. by 9.88 percent (roughly) in state polls and 16 percent in Lok Sabha.
However, the percentage of Congressional votes from the 2011 to 2016 elections rose from 8.91% to 12.3%, but fell dramatically in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls (9.6%) and in the general elections. In 2019, the party managed to obtain only 5 percent of the vote.
On June 24, 2020, with the assembly elections in Bengal less than a year away, the leaders of the left and Congress met again (after a failed alliance offer in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections ) and decided to work together at the booth level and unanimously agreed on an alliance for the 2021 assembly elections.
With a strong anti-Mamata position, Adhir has always been in favor of an alliance with the CPI (M): the party did not present any candidates against him in Berhampore in last year’s Lok Sabha polls. But for Sonia Gandhi, the bigger game plan is to fight the BJP and not Mamata.
Mamata-Sonia’s bonhomie was evident in a virtual meeting on August 26, 2020, when the UPA president asked the head of TMC to take the lead during the discussion on various issues related to the states and the Center.
This is not the first time that Sonia supported Mamata as she assumed a broader political leadership position against the BJP. In January 2019, during a ‘Mahagathbandhan’ rally at the iconic Calcutta Brigade parade ground, Sonia sent a message saying: “The next Lok Sabha elections will not be ordinary. This will be an election to restore the nation’s faith in democracy, defend our secular spirit and heritage, and defeat the forces that are trying to sabotage the Indian constitution. This rally marks a major attempt to push leaders from across the political spectrum to fight the arrogant and divisive Modi government. I wish this rally every success. “
Time and again, Adhir preferred not to comment on the Mamata-Sonia relationship, but his appointment as head of the Bengal Congress may go in Mamata’s favor because the 30.1 percent share of the BJP’s vote in the BJP polls. 2019’s Lok Sabha was primarily due to the shift of the left-wing Congress (they were not in alliance at the time) vote towards the saffron party, as the TMC witnessed a 5 percent gain in vote turnout to despite losing 12 seats.
Now that Congress and the Left are going to contest the assembly votes together, their percentage of votes will certainly increase in the next three-way fight between the TMC, the BJP and the Combined Left-Congress.
Sharing more about his plans for Bengal, Adhir Chowdhury said: “My priority is to turn our ‘rajnitik’ (political) alliance with the left into a ‘nirbachoni’ (electoral) alliance to obtain maximum benefits in the next assembly elections. . My goal will be to bring back those who left Congress and joined the TMC and the BJP. I would like to assure you that you will get all the respect at the party. “
On becoming party chairman in Bengal, he said: “I have to focus more on Bengal. In such circumstances, the expectation is not great, but certainly our vote percentage will increase this time. We will go for more campaigns and public outreach. Last but not least, after forging an alliance with the left, our goal will be the convergence of all secular and liberal forces to fight the ruling party and the BJP in Bengal. “
When asked if he does not believe that someone else should have been appointed head of unit of the Bengal party, considering the labor pressure as leader of the Lok Sabha party, Chowdhury said: “I am an obedient worker of the Congress party and I will continue to respect the leadership of the head of the party. They want me to lead the state unit and I accepted and accepted the challenge. “
Although winning the Bengal elections in 2021 is a distant dream, the central leadership of Congress is aware that currently only Adhir Chowdhury can lead the party to a respectable and remarkable position.
Under his leadership, the party managed to win 44 seats (out of 294) in the 2016 assembly elections and became the key opposition in the state. The combined Left Front won 32 seats.
Considering the alliance factor for the upcoming state elections, the total seats won by Congress and the Left Front combined in 2016 was 76, while the BJP won only three seats. And, if the Congress-Left Front alliance manages to retain its seats, it will certainly be a matter of great concern to the BJP despite its good performance in the 2019 general elections.
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