The Baharampur Lok Sabha seat election battle will be an interesting one. Traditionally a Left bastion, the constituency was wrested from the Revolutionary Socialist Party by the Congress's Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in 1999 and he hasn't lost since. 


Baharampur has had only 5 MPs from 2 parties since the seat first went to polls in 1952 — Tridib Chaudhuri, Nani Bhattacharya, and Pramothes Mukherjee from the RSP, and Atish Chandra Sinha and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from the Congress. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, which has been the ruling party in Bengal since 2011, has not been able to win the seat yet. The BJP, too, has been unable to gain a foothold in the constituency.


This year, the TMC is hoping to unseat Adhir Ranjan in Baharampur by fielding cricketer Yusuf Pathan in the constituency for the Lok Sabha polls. This will be Pathan's electoral debut.


The Baharampur Lok Sabha election will take place in the fifth phase of polling on May 13. The result will be declared on June 4.


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Yusuf Pathan Shakes Off 'Outsider' Tag


World Cup-winning team member Yusuf Pathan, who was jabbed with the 'outsider' dig by the BJP, fired back in kind. Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar, referring to Pathan and Bardhaman-Durgapur candidate Kirti Azad, slammed the TMC, saying the party was bringing in "outsiders" to fight polls now. Pathan sought to shake off the tag, saying even Prime Minister Modi is from Gujarat and he contests the Varanasi seat.


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Pathan, who hails from Baroda, has only one connection to Bengal — a seven-year stint with the Kolkata Knight Riders. Pathan, however, is looking to strengthen his bond with Bengal, promising to work for the development of the constituency if he wins. He also said he would build a sports academy in Baharampur. On fighting Adhir Chowdhury, he said that the Congress leader may be a five-time MP, but "times change for good".











 






 


Adhir Chowdhury — A Five-Time MP Who Crushed The Left


Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, president of the West Bengal unit of Congress, is the party's leader in Lok Sabha. Adhir won the Nabagram legislative assembly seat in 1996. He was then nominated to contest the Baharampur Lok Sabha Constituency in 1999, which he won. He has won the constituency five times since then.


He was chosen to lead the Congress in Lok Sabha in 2019 after Rahul Gandhi turned down the party's request to be its floor leader. He is among the most vocal leaders in the Congress and is a strong critic of the Narendra Modi government.


On Pathan's candidature, Chowdhury said that this was the TMC's ploy to polarise votes in Bengal. “If Mamata Banerjee had good intentions for Yusuf Pathan, she would have asked I.N.D.I.A bloc for a seat for him in Gujarat. But here in West Bengal, he is selected as a candidate to polarise the common man and to help the BJP, so that Congress can be defeated,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.


The Yusuf Pathan-vs-Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury battle will surely have the country's attention this Lok Sabha election as the TMC tries to snatch its maiden victory in Baharampur.


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Congress Strong In Baharampur Lok Sabha Segment, But Has No MLA


Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency covers 7 assembly constituencies — Burwan, Kandi, Beldanga, Naoda, Bharatpur, Baharampur, and Rejinagar. All of them are in the Murshidabad district. Interestingly, the Trinamool rules 6 of these assembly segments, while the BJP has the Bharampur Assembly segment. Congress doesn't have a single assembly seat under the Baharampur Lok Sabha electoral segment.


Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency has elected the RSP's Tridib Chaudhuri for the most terms (7) and Adhir Ranjan is hoping to break the record. 


In the last election in 2019, Baharampur had 16.3 lakh eligible voters, of whom around 13 lakh turned out to vote. The Murshidabad district is a Muslim-dominated region with 66.2% of the population coming from the community, according to the 2011 census. Hindus comprise 33.2% of the populace.