As Chowdhury, a five-time MP and Congress’s Lok Sabha leader, faces off with Pathan, TMC’s candidate and a political debutante, the contest could go to the last ball. Behrampore Lok Sabha seat has 86% rural voters. Fifty-one percent of its voters are Muslims, 13% SCs and 1% STs. No Muslim has ever represented Behrampore in the Lok Sabha. And Chowdhury has never in the last two-and-a-half decades faced a primary opponent who is a Muslim.
TMC sees Chowdhury, CM Mamata Banerjee and TMC’s fiercest critic, as a prickly Congress thorn disturbing the INDIA alliance. The party blames him for derailing the TMC-Congress seat sharing talks in Bengal. And eyeing its best ever chance to dislodge Chowdhury, it has pulled out all stops.
TMC’s belligerence against Chowdhury also stems from the fact that in 2021 assembly polls it won six of seven assemblies which make up this Lok Sabha. BJP won the Behrampore assembly seat. Projecting the 2021 assembly votes to the LS seat, TMC had an eye-popping 2.5 lakh lead over the BJP, which emerged second, and was ahead of third-placed Congress by 4.8 lakh votes.
However, Chowdhury’s strength lies in the fact that in the last two years, he has led a Congress revival in the area. In the 2023 panchayat polls (Behrampore is primarily a rural constituency), TMC had a 47% vote share, Congress came second with 37% and BJP was relegated to the third position with a 14% vote share. But BJP refuses to give in. Desperate to keep its hold over the Hindu votes in urban and semi urban belts of Behrampore assembly, BJP has fielded Nirmal Chandra Saha – a Behrampore local. For Chowdhury, this could be critical. He is also eyeing this zone to recover from an imminent split in the Muslim votes.
Sensing the battle at hand, Chowdhury has already raised the stakes. He has reshaped the political battle into a personal one. He has already announced he will “quit politics” if he fails to win Behrampore. In another interview, he said he will sell roasted peanuts in the streets of Behrampore. A MP for 25 years, Chowdhury’s personal connect with locals is enviable. There goes a saying in Behrampore that all calls to Chowdhury on his cellphone, by anyone, are always returned, even if it is post-midnight. Anyone who goes to the Kasimbazar Bagan Bari (where he now stays) is always attended in person.
But Pathan has provided the ‘X factor’ to the TMC which had been missing till now. It has successfully binned the divide within the local ranks. While his star power is draw ing the crowds, the robust party machinery is busy driving home the message that only Mamata Banerjee can fight the BJP in the state as well as nationally by mobilising a coalition. “While a section of voters in their 40s and 50s are still supporters of Adhirda, there is a whole new generation which has now grown up in the new millennium. Now they are asking a lot of questions about what Chowdhury has done in the past 25 years when he represented Behrampore. He has been an MP for a quarter of a century, and he owes the youth some answers,” said a local TMC leader, who was once a Chowdhury loyalist but defected to TMC.
The April communal clashes in Murshidabad after a Ram Navami procession passed by a mosque had already left indications of a growing polarisation. Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of UP, campaigned in Rejinagar last week and drew a good crowd. Saha, the BJP candidate, however, does not agree. “BJP is seeking votes on the plank of Modiji’s development agenda,” said Saha.
The town, established by the East India Company in 1757 following the Battle of Plassey, is poised for Bengal’s most keenly watched electoral battle. The results here are set to resonate in post-poll Delhi, defining the Trinamool Congress and Congress relationship in the INDIA alliance camp.