Although the Congress is yet to announce its list of candidates for the upcoming West Bengal polls, veteran Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Friday said he was willing to contest the Assembly polls after a gap of nearly three decades.
Talking to media persons, Adhir Chowdhury said, “My party wants me to fight at Berhampore. As a partyman, I will follow the decision as it is not only my choice but my party’s also. Though I am seasoned with parliamentary politics, the Berhampore Assembly seat comes under the Berhampore Lok Sabha constituency, which I represented earlier. So, I am not an outsider here.”
He then added, “I am a foot soldier of the Congress and will do whatever the party asks me to. Under the current political circumstances in Bengal, the task is to keep the Congress banner flying high, and that’s why the AICC pursued all senior state leaders to contest the polls. While some agreed, others didn’t. I chose to accept the request.”
The Berhampore Assembly seat is currently represented by BJP MLA Subrata Moitra (Kanchan), who has been fielded again by the saffron party. The TMC has nominated Beharampore Municipality Chairperson Naru Gopal Mukherjee for the seat.
Adhir Chowdhury had first contested the West Bengal Assembly polls in 1991 from the Nabagram constituency in the Murshidabad district, but lost to CPI(M) leader Sisir Kumar Sarkar by a margin of around 1,400 votes. He contested from Nabagram again in 1996 and won. He vacated the seat three years later in 1999 to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the Berhampore constituency. After that, Adhir Chowdhury held the Berhampore Lok Sabha seat till 2024, when he was unseated by TMC candidate and former cricketer Yusuf Pathan.
The Congress had contested the 2021 state polls under a seat-sharing adjustment with the Left Front. It had contested 91 seats but had failed to win even a single seat in the 294-member legislative assembly.
According to Congress sources, apart from Adhir Chowdhury, many other senior party leaders will contest the Assembly elections. Former TMC Rajya Sabha MP Mausam Benazir Noor, who recently returned to the Congress, Congress state president Shuvankar Sarkar, and Isha Khan Chowdhury, the lone Congress MP from Bengal, may also fight the Assembly election this time.