In Bengal’s Congress stronghold, BJP’s ‘Nirbhaya Didi’ creates ripples: Who is Sreerupa Mitra-Chaudhary?

In the BJP’s Maldaha Dakshin constituency in West Bengal, its candidate Sreerupa Mitra-Chaudhary has grabbed public attention with her unique campaign style that has also rattled the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).

So much so that while addressing a public meeting at Kaliachak in Malda district on Tuesday, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee slammed Mitra-Chaudhary and called her “behaya (shameless)”.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Wednesday wrote a letter to the state DGP seeking an action taken report on the alleged derogatory remarks of the TMC MP and party No 2 against the BJP candidate, who is better known as “Nirbhaya Didi (fearless Didi) ”.

Mitra-Chaudhary, the sitting BJP MLA from the English Bazar Assembly segment in Malda, is contesting against the Congress’s Isha Khan Choudhury and the TMC’s Shahnawaz Ali Raihan. The Congress candidate is the son of sitting MP Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury who has won the seat since 2009. Known popularly as Dalu da, he is the brother of former Union Minister and Congress stalwart A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury. The TMC candidate is an Oxford scholar who was a prominent voice against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Chaudhary is a former journalist, social worker and women’s rights activist. In 2004, she took part in the launch of the National Legal Literacy Mission. In 2008, she served as national advisor of the National Legal Services Authority under the Ministry of Law and Justice.

After the 2012 Delhi gang rape, she chaired the special task force on rape, trafficking and violence against women set up by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. That’s how she got the “Nirbhaya Didi” moniker. In December 2013, she resigned from the post amid speculation that she