Amid TMC surge in Bengal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury stares at defeat in Baharampur

As the Trinamool Congress (TMC) looks set to stamp its dominance in West Bengal politics, leading in 30 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha constituencies, and the BJP’s tally looks set to reduce, one of the major results is coming from Baharampur where state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is trailing TMC candidate and former cricketer Yusuf Pathan.

Adhir, a five-time MP, has been winning the constituency since 1999 and was the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha in the outgoing Parliament. In the state, he is among the most vociferous critics of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The CM has blamed Adhir for the INDIA alliance not contesting together in Bengal. While the TMC is part of the alliance nationally, in the state contested on its own.

On the campaign trail for Yusuf, TMC MP from Diamond Harbour and the party’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee had blamed Adhir for the “breakdown of the INDIA bloc” in Bengal. “Whenever Congress’s central leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were holding meetings with Didi (Mamata) to defeat the BJP, Adhir was busy addressing a press conference in Bengal to slam the TMC and Didi,” he said.

After counting began at 8 am Adhir, who won Baharampur by 80,737 votes in 2019, took the lead but BJP candidate Nirmal Saha slowly cut down his lead and later Yusuf Pathan surged ahead. At 3.30 pm, he was leading Adhr by more than 34,000 votes. With Adhir looking likely to lose the constituency, the party’s Malda Dakshin candidate Isha Khan Choudhury, whose uncle A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury was a Union Minister and cousin Mausam Noor is a TMC MP in the Rajya Sabha, is the only Congress candidate who is currently in the lead in Bengal.

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