The TMC Sunday fielded Pathan against Adhir from Baharampur, setting a stern test before the former cricketer who was a key member of the Indian teams that won the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 ODI World Cup and also played in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Though the Congress has yet to announce its candidates in Bengal, Chowdhury is expected to be fielded again from Baharampur, a Congress stronghold that he has been winning since 1999.
Pathan, born in Baroda to a Gujarati Pathan family in 1982, earned his first India cap in 2007 after his younger brother Irfan. He made his debut in the T20 World Cup final against Pakistan, which India won in Johannesburg. After that win, thanks to his big-hitting abilities, Pathan was part of the Indian white-ball teams over the next four years. He was also part of the team that won the 2011 World Cup, during which he played 6 matches in the group stage.
In 2011, KKR acquired Pathan for Rs 9.66 crore and with them he went on to win two IPL titles. Overall, he has three IPL titles. He retired from all forms of cricket in 2021. Yusuf has preferred a quiet life and at his farmhouse in Vadodara rears a variety of animals and grows many types of plants.
Though time will tell if Pathan can translate his cricketing success into political achievement, the TMC will bank on his popularity to break the Congress hold on Baharampur, a seat where the Muslim community’s vote is crucial. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the TMC, which has never won Baharampur, brought down Adhir’s vote share from 50.5% in 2014 to 45.4% even as its vote share rose from 19.7% to 39.2%. Chowdhury, in the end, won by 80,696 votes, down from 3.56 lakh votes in 2014.
The Assembly election results also present a serious picture for the Congress leader and illustrate he may have a fight on his hands. In the 2016 Assembly polls, the Congress swept all the seven Assembly segments that are part of the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat. In the 2021 state polls, while the BJP bagged the Baharampur segment, the other six went to the TMC.
The Mamata-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 significant shift from 2016, when the Congress won these segments with a 45.9% vote share, followed by the TMC far behind at 24.9%.