Battle for Baharampur: Cong. ghting to retain last bastion in West Bengal
In a bitter contest between INDIA bloc allies, TMC †elds ‘outsider’ cricketer-turned-politician Yusuf Pathan against State’s sole Cong. MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who has had an iron grip over the constituency since 1999; BJP may bene†t from triangular †g
Awinding cavalcade of more than 300 motorcycles accompanies three cars on a road in the deep interiors of Naoda Assembly segment in Baharampur.
In one of the cars is the West Bengal Congress president and ve-time MP from the Lok Sabha seat, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, locally known as borda (elder brother).
As scores of villagers line up to greet the cavalcade, Mr. Chowdhury, unlike other candidates, does not step out of his car. There is no waving at crowds, no garlands thrown at him, and no small welcome parties at village crossroads. This possibly shows the condence that the 68-year-old MP with a “Robin Hood” image in this constituency has in his electorate.
This time, however, the walls of these largely Muslim-dominated villages are painted with slogans seeking votes for Yusuf Pathan, cricketer-turned-politician and Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate for this seat. Can this queer the pitch for Mr. Chowdhury?
Cong. support dipping
Though Mr. Chowdhury has had an iron grip over his constituency since 1999, his victory margin dipped from 3,56,277 in 2014 to just 79,694 in 2019.
The 2021 Assembly election results also illustrate that the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha may have a tough ght on his hands. In the 2016 State election, the Congress swept all the seven Assembly segments that are part of the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat. In 2021, however, the BJP bagged the Baharampur Assembly seat, while the other six went to the TMC. The Mamata Banerjee-led party won 50.1% of the votes across these segments, followed by the BJP at 31.6%, and the Congress at 15.1%.
It was a signicant shift from 2016, when the Congress won these segments with a 45.9% vote share, followed far behind by the TMC at 24.9%.
Amid allegations and counter-allegations between the Congress and the
Trinamool over who has been “making a deal” with the BJP, the TMC worker on the ground is very clear. “Our only aim is to cut Muslim votes from Adhir and ensure that he loses,” says local TMC leader Subodh Chandra Das, sitting at the party’s district o¥ce in Baharampur.
Muslim factor
Baharampur has a Muslim population of more than 60%. With the BJP’s vote share in the 2021 Assembly election climbing up to 30.1%, this TMC strategy can spell trouble for the Congress leader, who now remains the sole face of his party in West Bengal.
But it is unclear whether the predominantly Muslim electorate in rural areas will vote for Mr. Pathan, who is also seen as an “outsider”, and whether his connection with the Kolkata Knight Riders IPL cricket team will su¥ce for his connect with the masses.
Trinamool leaders dismiss the “outsider” tag, saying that since this is a parliamentary election, it is national and not local concerns that will take centre stage.
A senior Trinamool functionary in Kolkata, who did not wish to be named, said the party had chosen Mr. Pathan as there were nearly half a dozen factions in the district of Murshidabad, in which the Lok Sabha constituency falls, and choosing any of them would have meant giving a walkover to Mr. Chowdhury. Thus, they were all taken into condence and Mr. Pathan was brought in instead.
The bitterness between the two parties stems from the failure of the two sides to arrive at a seat-sharing arrangement in the State despite being allies in the Opposition INDIA bloc. In fact, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has accused Mr. Chowdhury of being solely responsible for derailing the pact in the State.
Mr. Chowdhury maintains that the strong “antiincumbency” sentiment against the Trinamool will see him through.
‘De cient development’ In Baharampur, it is evident as one travels through the villages that in the absence of any national wave, voters are bothered only about local issues.
Though the electors are unusually tight-lipped in the urban areas of this constituency, which has a history of poll-related violence, people in the villages are openly questioning Mr. Chowdhury’s “model” of development.
Nazrul Islam, who was formerly a supporter of the Congress and had fought the panchayat elections in the State for the party, says: “If Adhir feels that putting up a street light in a village corner is development, then people are not satised any more”.